Salutations
I welcome you all to this Thirtieth Meeting of CARICOM Heads of Government.
To my distinguished colleagues, their delegations and special invitees, I extend warmest greetings and best wishes for a pleasant and productive stay.
Special thanks are due to Prime Minister Barrow for hosting us in Belize in March and for his effective stewardship as Chairman of the Conference of Heads of Government over the past six months.
I would also like to recognize our Secretary General and his staff who continue to serve our regional enterprise with great dedication and commitment.
More particularly, I would like to offer my warmest congratulations to the Most Honourable P. J. Patterson, former Prime Minister of Jamaica, on the award to him of the Community’s highest honour. It is a distinction which he richly deserves for his lifetime of service to our Region. His role as CARICOM’s Prime Ministerial spokesman for external trade relations has been outstanding, and we remain forever obliged to him.
Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen:
I am sure that at some point in time you would have encountered disenchantment at the slow pace of our integration movement and, in some quarters, a fear that we may be going nowhere. This disquiet has been made all the more acute recently by the global financial crisis which has impacted on our economies and threatens our future. This crisis has rendered the other challenges we face such as increasing crime, a cycle of high oil and food prices, and threats to the environment even more formidable.
We have collectively sought to respond to these diverse challenges, with varying degrees of success. Some of our achievements are well known, but others less so, perhaps as a result of an ineffective communication strategy.
On this note, it is critical that the story of the birth and development of our integration process, as well as our vision for the future and our strategy to achieve it, are fully understood and embraced by our people, if they are to stay the course on the journey that is still before us.
The journey thus far has not always been easy. At times, we have encountered setbacks, had our disagreements, and doubted our possibilities. Throughout all of this we have persevered, even if more slowly than we would have liked, towards our common goals.
Indeed, it may be useful to reflect on the path we have travelled since the establishment of the Community enterprise in the early seventies with the Georgetown Accord of 1973 which gave birth to CARICOM. This historical agreement, as we may remember, called for the fulfillment of the hopes and aspirations of the Caribbean people “within the shortest possible time.” It further endorsed the idea of ‘closer economic integration’ as the catalyst for a viable economic Community of the Commonwealth Caribbean Countries.” Hardly was the ink dry on the Accord, when the crisis of the third Arab-Israeli war arose, effectively casting a cloud of uncertainty over the region’s grand design. The resulting high oil prices led to serious inflation and high food prices throughout the Region.
Such was the devastating impact of the crisis that, when CARICOM Heads of Government met in 1982 in Ocho Rios, Jamaica to assess the consequences of economic turmoil, they recognised the threat it represented to regional integration. They nonetheless reiterated “their conviction that the Community is a symbol of hope and a practical mechanism for the improvement of the quality of life of all their peoples.” It was an impressive display of faith in the Region and of commitment to its full development. By 1986, the worst of the economic and financial storm had passed and recovery begun. Since then the Community has experienced several other major crises but, with the same spirit of resilience and resolution which was manifested in its infancy, we have managed to overcome these and sustain progress.
As a result, democracy now prevails throughout our Region. We have also progressed economically as a Community to a degree where it can be safely said that there has been a notable reduction in poverty. And, even though there remain some pockets of poverty in our Region, none of our people suffer from the terrible hunger and deprivation we see in less fortunate parts of the world. We have also witnessed, in practical ways, the benefits of increased functional cooperation in several important sectors such as education, health, security and the environment.
Undeniable too is our human rights record. Many freedoms which our people enjoy are now firmly entrenched in our individual constitutions as well as in many regional and international instruments. Other nations, in fact, see our Caribbean society as a model of peace and social stability. In our relations with the rest of the world, we have been able, through improved coordination, to speak with one voice on matters of common interest and concern. In the process, we have enhanced not only our collective influence in decision making but also our image as proud and independent members of the family of nations.
This is not to say, however, that we have reached all the goals we set for ourselves as a Community. In recapitulating some of our successes, my main purpose is to remind us all that, in spite of the numerous setbacks we have encountered and while the present international landscape is certainly gloomy, we must not forget what together we have been able to do and that, with patient persistence, we can do much more.
Going forward, we need to ask ourselves some important questions, the answers to which will determine our fate in this twenty first century:
1. What are the challenges that will define this century, and do we have a regional strategy to take account of the new world in which we live?
2. What must we do to take our integration, and our cooperation, generally to a higher level and make it a more effective vehicle for taking us forward?
3. Do our people understand what we are trying to do, and are they sufficiently inspired to accompany us for the rest of the journey?
As we answer these questions, we must be prepared to define the space we wish to occupy in today’s and tomorrow’s world, ensure that we have the right policies to fill that space, and use the integration process to drive these policies.
In defining our space, there are some harsh realities we must confront. The first is our limited ability to influence global power structures and relations outside of a Cold War situation. As a Region, we in CARICOM account for less than one-fifth of one percent of global merchandise trade, one-tenth of one percent of world output, and one-quarter of one percent of the global population. Because of the foregoing, and since we do not pose a systemic threat to global stability, our collective voice often struggles to muster the barest minimum of attention on the global stage. This being the case, the likelihood of us being heard if we speak as individual voices is much more remote than if we speak as one.
We must be mindful of this reality, harsh though it may be, as we define our space in the global context. We must likewise be attentive to the need for strong Regional positions to be articulated, and for the collective Regional interest to be advocated with strident unison, as we engage the rest of the world on global issues that affect us.
In this regard, countries such as ours simply cannot achieve transformational prosperity over a sustained period within the current financial and trade architecture. Our progress will continue to be stymied until we have in place a multilateral system that allows us greater participation in the decision-making processes, and until we restructure global trading arrangements to respond to our particular needs.
In the immediate future, it would be critical that we advance discussions with Canada on a trade and development agreement that avoids the mistakes of the past. In addition, our imminent meeting with President Obama following up on that held recently in Port of Spain, will enable us to sensitise the current US administration to the development model we find most appropriate to our needs, which would hopefully influence the policies of that administration and lead to the enhancement of relations between the US and CARICOM.
Within the Region, recent events have demonstrated to us more than ever before, that we will further lose global significance and continue to be unable to realise the dreams and aspirations of our people if we move in slow incremental steps along the path of economic transformation. Instead, what we need is a development model that will allow us quickly and in a non-evolutionary way to capture the promise of the 21st century and safeguard our society from new negative challenges. In this regard, we must identify a core of critical transformational policies and implement them with singleminded resoluteness.
Indeed, on every occasion that I have spoken at the regional level, I have highlighted certain key sectors and buildings blocks that would be critical for the rapid regional transformation that we all desire.
Foremost amongst these is the fact that our continued dependence on non-renewable energy is unacceptable in current times. Certainly for all of our countries which are oil importers, but even for the oil exporters among us, the case for rapid investment in alternative and renewable energy sources is a compelling one. If we were to harness our Region’s collective energy potential from sources such as hydro, solar, wind, and wave action, along with our capacity for ethanol production, the impact on our balance of payments, competitiveness in our productive sector, and cost of living, would be immeasurable.
Secondly, we need to aggressively develop and implement an at-scale information and communication technology plan, designed on the principle of mobilizing cutting edge technology to advance our development agenda. This plan must include securing the necessary infrastructure to ensure affordable access to reliable and sufficient bandwidth, so that we do not lag behind the developed world in connectivity. The rapid diffusion of information and communication technology could catalyse thousands of sustainable jobs, and enable us to educate our people in a more efficient manner. It would also provide us with a tool for improving competitiveness of our industry and help reverse the decline in total factor productivity that has been observed in our Region for some time now. It would similarly facilitate the development of education services as an export sector in our Region.
The third major building block to be pursued is an alignment of our education systems to deliver entrants into our workforce who are properly prepared and equipped with skills relevant to the demands of the knowledge and information economy. In this regard, we must ensure that our education system does not lag behind those of the rest of the world. Just this midday, we received an excellent presentation from the distinguished Vice-Chancellor of the University of the West Indies, seeking to deploy the research and intellectual capacity of the University in search for answers to the “real world” problems that policymakers face daily in our societies.
As we put these, what I consider essential prerequisites to accelerated development, in place we must also respond to challenges that threaten our future way of life. Foremost amongst these are climate change and food security.
As you know, we are drawing near to Copenhagen where further agreements on the environment will be finalised. I need not emphasise that for small and vulnerable states of the Caribbean, this Conference is of paramount importance to our economic progress and indeed, to our very survival.
We must vociferously advocate an ambitious climate change agreement in Copenhagen that puts us on a sustainable pathway to achieving a concentration of greenhouse gases that will not cause major shifts in global temperatures and catastrophic consequences particularly for islands and low-lying states. This agreement must provide mechanisms to generate sufficient funds for adaptation, mitigation, and technology transfer. Reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation, inclusive of avoided deforestation, must be a prominent part of the agreement. This will be important for Suriname, Belize, and Guyana, which has just launched a comprehensive low carbon development strategy.
In like manner, despite the development of a regional programme for the transformation of agriculture, we have not progressed nearly as quickly as we should in implementing and realising its objectives. The promotion of agriculture would serve not only to reduce our food import bill and increase the export of our products especially non-traditional items, but also to enhance our food security. The current level of food imports into our Region, now in excess of three billion dollars, can scarcely be afforded given our tenuous external balances. Attention must, therefore, be focused immediately on how we come together to mobilise rapidly increased investment in this vital sector.
I am pleased that this Conference of Heads plans to issue separate declarations on some of these matters with a view of bringing greater focus to them and expediting joint action. We also plan to issue a declaration which is titled “Beyond Grand Anse”. I trust that this declaration will go beyond a recommitment to the lofty and noble objectives of our integration movement, as necessary as this is, and include practical initiatives such as those I have just outlined that could form part of the transformational pathway.
I don’t think that I need to elaborate on a number of other issues that are significant to the advancement of the regional integration process. These include the implementation of common regimes such as in the field of fisheries, initiatives to improve the health of our people, improving the competitiveness of our tourism product, accelerating the provisions of the single market and economy in a holistic manner including free movement of people, and developing a regime for strengthened financial sector supervision and coordination across regulators in our Member States to minimise the risk of financial contagion.
This is not the first time that I have spoken on such matters, and on issues such as the need for us to consider how we can better mobilize such resources as our vast Diaspora in pursuing our development agenda. More demonstrable progress on all of these matters would be critical if we are to take our integration to another level.
As we continue to pursue the lofty design and noble objectives of our integration endeavour which are even more relevant today than in 1973, and while we hasten with the urgent transformative actions that are so critically needed by our Region if we are to remain apace and compete in today’s world, we must also be extremely vigilant in preserving popular faith in the cause of our integration effort.
To the latter end, we must as leaders reflect carefully on how the regional enterprise interfaces with, and affects most immediately, the people of our Region.
The average Caribbean traveler will assess the integration movement based on the ease with which he can travel from one member state to another within our single space. If he sees himself as encountering more hurdles in traversing this space than the visitor from overseas, his faith in integration is shaken, sometimes permanently. As I have said publicly, our countries have a sovereign right to determine our own immigration policies. However, maltreatment of Caricom citizens is repugnant to the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas and to human decency, and must be deplored. If we treat our own people badly, how can we then expect third countries to receive them with respect?
In similar manner, the average Caribbean manufacturing company will form their conclusions on regional integration by the ease with which their product can enter the marketplace of another member state. If they encounter incongruent national standards that cause their products to be accepted in one market but rejected in another, or face standards that are higher for regional goods than for goods from extra-regional sources, then regional integration becomes a fiction to them.
These are the nuisances we need to fix, if we are to arrest disenchantment with the regional endeavour.
Although by no means complete, these indications which I have given for future Community actions should convince us that, whatever view we may have on our achievements thus far, there is no alternative to integration. Just look to the European Union – a community of twenty seven countries and four hundred and ninety one million people – which is still pursuing higher forms of integration. How much more should we, who are much smaller and certainly more disadvantaged, also seek the gains to be had from greater unity and cooperation?
Technical, economic and political issues apart, in my view, our work will remain incomplete until the day that a child born anywhere in our Region opens his or her eyes to a patrimony that sees no boundaries between nations and nationalities within our integrated Caribbean space. We as leaders can set the example for such a glorious day.
Again I welcome you and hope that our deliberations will be rewarding.
