(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana)Secretary General of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) His Excellency Edwin Carrington said yesterday, that preparatory work had started for the drafting of a Protocol on Contingent Rights to be accorded to spouses, children and other dependents of persons who exercised the right to move within the framework of the CARICOM Single Market (CSM). Foremost among those, he said were the rights to services such as education and health.
Addressing the Opening Ceremony of the Twelfth Special Meeting of the Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD) on Children, which opened yesterday (17 March 2008) in Guyana, the CARICOM Secretary General said the drafting of the Protocol was part of the thrust to ensure seamless provision of services to children and others throughout the Region as they move within the CSM.
“Our citizens need to be confident that they are not putting their dependents at a disadvantage with regard to such essential services,” the Secretary General remarked.
He underscored the strategic importance of the Council’s aim to harmonise legal Frameworks for children and for standards for early childhood development services, especially within the context of the CSM asserting that the Single Market would be stultified if contingent rights were denied.
Commending the COHSOD for its leadership in critical areas of Human and Social Development, the Secretary General noted that one of the issues that would engage the attention of the COHSOD over the next two days would be that of strategic programming for children affected by natural disasters and emergencies.
“We cannot afford to ignore the fact that within the next two decades, the world will be significantly altered by the effects of climate change and our planners will need to deal strategically with this reality if we are to adequately provide for the children of this generation,” the Secretary General cautioned.
He charged the COHSOD to ensure that the relevant stakeholders were engaged in its planning and that the necessary capacity building was provided to ensure their optimal contribution.
Pointing to the many collaborative initiatives of the CARICOM Secretariat in support of children, Secretary General Carrington said that initiatives such as the Regional Early Childhood Development Working Group on issues affecting children; the Task Force on Child Rights and Child Protection and the Working Group on Health and Family Life Education, could not have been successful without close collaboration with other development partners and regional institutions.
He recorded the Secretariat’s appreciation for the important role which those partners continued to play in the development of the Region, and particularly acknowledged United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) for the significant technical and financial support provided for the COHSOD.
The Twelfth Special COHSOD on Children provides a forum for regional and international stakeholders to deliberate and subsequently among other things establish a comprehensive child legislative framework and accompanying efficient implementing mechanisms for greater protection of children in the Caribbean.
