An approach to creating new pathways to generate economic activity by the Mottley administration has been to discover new and deepen existing relationships with African countries. It is axiomatic that an island built on slave labour should prefer to nurture a wholesome relationship with the Mother Country. Despite the political noise created when Prime Minister Mottley toured African countries early in her tenure, it seems a no-brainer if one considers that commercial trade with traditional markets has increasingly been adversely affected by the geopolitics of the More Developed Countries (MDCs). Unfortunately in the last 20 years, to pick the period of worse social and economic decline, Barbados has experienced a falloff in thought leadership among key stakeholders – government; public sector, private sector, non governmental organizations; trade unions. The easy path to exploit a service/tourism based economy popularized by the Owen Arthur AND vigorously pursued by his successors has landed the gem of the Caribbean in the spot of bother we find ourselves.