Background
Grenada is a tiny nation, made up of its namesake main island and two other inhabited islands, Carriacou and Petit Martinique, which are much smaller still. It lies near the southern end of the Caribbean Sea's vast complex of islands, about 100 km north of Venezuela. The only significant Caribbean islands south of Grenada are Trinidad and Tobago.
Spanish mariners in the early 16th century named the island Granada after the city in Spain; the name used today, Grenada, is a French variant dating from the active French presence in the region in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Today, Grenada is one of the world's leading producers of nutmeg and a major grower of many other spices-a distinction that has given it the nickname "the Spice Island." It became much more widely known worldwide after it was the site of a United States military invasion in 1983.
Its landscape features mountains, lush rainforests, waterfalls and, on the coast, some outstanding beaches. Some consider Grenada's capital city of St. George's and its harbor setting the most picturesque urban scene in the Caribbean.
Demography
The population of Grenada numbers just over 101,000. The vast majority are of African or mixed African-European descent. There are small minorities of European (mostly British) and East Asian descent, as well as a small community of indigenous Amerindians.
English is the official language; with only a few people still speaking a French-African patois that is a relic of Grenada's distant French colonial past.
A more significant reminder of Grenada's historical link with France is the strength of the Roman Catholic Church, to which about 60 percent of Grenadines belong. The Anglican Church is the largest Protestant denomination; other Protestant denominations with Grenadian adherents include Methodist and Presbyterian.
Health and Welfare
In terms of human development, education in Grenada is compulsory up to age sixteen. School attendance is high; most people in the country continue their education beyond the compulsory threshold, and the literacy rate is an impressive 96 percent.
According to recent estimates, the infant mortality rate is 13.92 deaths for every 1,000 live births. Average life expectancy of approximately 65 years years of age. The fertility rate is 2.3 children born per woman. The birth rate is 21.87 births per 1,000 of the population and the death rate is 6.61 per 1,000 of the population.
About 4.9 percent of GDP is spent on education in this country; about 7.1 percent of GDP is spent on health expenditures. Access to water and sanitation is regarded as good although there may be some limits in certain rural areas.
Human Development
Another quality-of-life indicator that reflects on Grenada is the Human Development Index (HDI), compiled annually since 1990 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The HDI is a composite of several indicators, which measure a country's achievements in three main arenas of human development: longevity, knowledge and education, as well as economic standard of living. In a recent ranking of 177 countries, the HDI placed Grenada in the medium human development category, at 82nd place. However, in the latest HDI update, Grenada was omitted.
Note: Although the concept of human development is complicated and cannot be properly captured by values and indices, the HDI, which is calculated and updated annually, offers a wide-ranging assessment of h uman development in certain countries, not based solely upon traditional economic and financial indicators.
Written by Dr. Denise Youngblood Coleman, Editor in Chief,
www.countrywatch.com; see Bibliography for references.