Barbados

Barbados: Country Brief

Barbados carries one of the fuller data profiles in this batch, with governance, energy and capability indicators alongside standard economic series.

Economy

Barbados's gross domestic product was $7,498,050,000.00 in 2024, per the World Bank's World Development Indicators (WDI). GDP per capita was $26,544.87 the same year, also per World Bank WDI. Population stood at 282,467 in 2024, per World Bank WDI. Foreign-exchange reserves were $1,653,675,115.41 in 2024, per World Bank WDI. Government debt stood at 89.5% of GDP, per the IMF's World Economic Outlook (WEO), carried for 2026.

Governance

V-Dem v15, for 2025, scores Barbados at 0.797 on its electoral democracy index and 0.679 on its liberal democracy index. The same source gives Barbados a state capacity score of 0.927 for 2025.

Security and capability

The Correlates of War (COW) National Material Capabilities dataset records 1,000 active military personnel for Barbados in 2022, with a Composite Index of National Capability (CINC) score of 2.4175677e-05 for the same year. No SIPRI military-expenditure figures are present in this bundle, so expenditure cannot be assessed alongside personnel strength.

Energy

Primary energy consumption was 0.0203 exajoules in 2023, per Our World in Data's energy series. Electricity generation was 1.11 terawatt-hours in 2024, also per Our World in Data. Oil production was 0.63 terawatt-hours and gas production was 0.186 terawatt-hours, both recorded for 2016, per the same source.

Data gaps

No SIPRI military-expenditure data is available for Barbados. The oil- and gas-production figures date to 2016, the most recent year carried in this series, and should not be assumed to reflect current output.

Sources: World Bank WDI; IMF WEO; V-Dem v15; Correlates of War National Material Capabilities; Our World in Data (Energy).