A range of issues deemed critical to the future development of the Caribbean Community have been proposed for discussion at the first ever Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Forum with the Region’s Civil Society to be convened next year.
Proposals for the issues came out of the first meeting of the Planning Committee for the Forum held in Trinidad and Tobago recently. The Forum is scheduled to be held no later than April 2001.
The proposed Forum followed on a decision coming out of the Seventh Special Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of CARICOM, in its blue print, Consensus of Chaguaramas, which was held in October, 1999 in Trinidad and Tobago. The Community leaders in recognition of the important role of civil society in the ongoing integration process, had proposed the consultation with the widest possible participation of the citizens of the Region in the decision-making process towards the development of the Region.
Some of the proposed issues relate to the reform of the Region’s education system and its relationship to employment, productivity and technology acquisition; recapturing/retaining migrating skills; instruments at the Regional and National level to promote domestic savings, and focusing on the Caribbean as a “zone of peace”. These would be elements in the search for a “New Model of Economic Development” for the Caribbean.
The Planning Committee meeting brought together representatives of the Region’s private sector, Non Governmental Organisations (NGO), labour and Government. It was proposed that the tone of the deliberations be directed at formulating new structures of governance appropriate to the changing needs of the Caribbean experience. The planning committee also agreed that the Region’s Youth and media should be embraced in the consultations.
The Planning Committee meeting provided an occasion for the representatives of NGOs to highlight some critical concerns relating to follow-up action on commitments made under the Charter of Civil Society, subscribed to by CARICOM Governments in 1997.
It was suggested that CARICOM needed to revisit existing mechanisms of consultation between government and civil society. The planning team also recommended that new mechanisms be identified and that there be a commitment to the processes of ongoing collaboration both at the national and regional levels. The meeting also considered mechanisms for following-up on decisions coming out of the proposed Forum.
The leaders in their proposal for consultations with Civil Society aim to cater for a free and wide-ranging interchange of ideas aimed at arriving at a consensus for a strategy for the development of the Region and its peoples.
As part of the preparations for the convening of the Forum, members of the public are welcomed to share their views on the proposed consultations and offer suggestions on issued which may be included on the agenda.
Come on board and lodge your contribution on to CARICOM web site at www.caricom.org.
