(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) The Organization of American States (OAS), through the Executive Secretariat (ES) of the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) and the Organization of American States (OAS) Office in Guyana, met with the Secretariat of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in Georgetown, Guyana. The two organizations explored cooperation opportunities on the multifaceted aspects of the drug problem in the Hemisphere and particularly in the Caribbean region.
The ES/CICAD mission comprised Ms. Angela Crowdy, Assistant Executive Secretary, and Ms. Karen Sanjines, Multilateral Evaluation Mechanism (MEM) Specialist, and was joined in-country by Mr. Jean Ricot Dormeus, OAS Representative to Guyana, and Ms. Esther Best, Manager of Trinidad and Tobago’s National Drug Council and Chair of the OAS Program, Prevention and Treatment Evaluation Systems for the Training and Certification Program-PROCCER for the Caribbean. The CARICOM Secretariat team comprised Ms. Myrna Bernard, Director, Human Development, Ms. Beverly Reynolds, Programme Manager, Sustainable Development, and Dr. Rudolph Cummings, Programme Manager, Health.
The two delegations exchanged information on the mandates of their respective organizations and identified areas for continued collaboration between the two entities. Results of the reports for the Caribbean countries on the Sixth Evaluation Round of the MEM were presented to CARICOM. These reports capture the status of compliance of the OAS member states, which include the fifteen CARICOM Member States, in relation to fulfilling actions under the Plan of Action 2011-2015 of the 2010 CICAD Hemispheric Drug Strategy.
OAS/CICAD and CARICOM Secretariats agreed to continue strengthening ties in addressing the issue of drug control in the Caribbean region.
