The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) will formally inaugurate on Tuesday, 9 November 2004, a new five-year US$81 million development assistance strategy for Member States of the Community.
The goal of the five-year strategy is to assist the Region in becoming globally competitive in trade and in its thrust to increase better quality of life for the peoples of the Caribbean. Specifically, the assistance will focus on promoting open trade and competitiveness and supporting on-going efforts in the Region to address HIV/AIDS.
The trade and competitiveness assistance focuses on supporting CARICOM's Regional efforts to bring the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) into operation and ensuring the necessary legal infrastructure, promoting Regional compliance with trade agreement requirements, enabling the private sector to be internationally competitive, and strengthening the environmental and disaster prevention frameworks needed to ensure growth.
The HIV/AIDS assistance focuses on supporting CARICOM's Regional efforts under the Pan Caribbean Partnership Against HIV/AIDS, commonly known as PANCAP, to expand access to HIV care and treatment, improve Regional and national monitoring of the epidemic, and reduce further transmission of HIV by targeting HIV prevention efforts to those most at risk.
In partnership, USAID and CARICOM will direct this assistance through key Regional and national Caribbean institutions and organisations, including non-governmental organisations and the private sector.
Contact: Rose Blenman
rblenman@caricom.org
