The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is delighted to extend warm and sincere congratulations to the Government of Jamaica and to the Commonwealth Local Government Forum for taking the timely initiative of convening this Regional Symposium on Local Democracy and Good Governance in the Caribbean. I bring you greetings on behalf of the Secretary General, His Excellency, Edwin Carrington, who very much regrets that he could not be with you at this opening Ceremony of this important Conference. I am honoured to substitute for him and to let you know that your conference on this theme could not be more appropriate for the Caribbean Community.
Your conference comes at a time when the CARICOM as a collective group of states is moving rapidly to deepen the process of regional integration. Among the major activities in this is the establishment of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) and the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). The activities involve the implementation of a series of regulations and legislation, an enormous set of negotiations among member states, the development of acceptable regional agencies to carry out the required agreements and above all the political will of the CARICOM leadership together with the support of the people, the NGOs, the business communities, the Labour Unions, the faith based organizations among others.
This in turn requires a substantial public education programme to clarify issues and remove misconceptions such as those surrounding the establishment of the Caribbean court of Justice. Without the original jurisdiction of CCJ to arbitrate in trade disputes, for example, the integration movement will not function effectively. Hence this is the core function of the CCJ. Its role as the ultimate appellate body in criminal matters, normally given greatest prominence in debates in the media, may well turn out to be its subsidiary, though important, function.
Then again, in moving the regional process forward, there is also the need for fostering a Community spirit at national levels. This essentially means creating the mechanisms through which a collectivity of perceived sovereign states can in fact pool or share this sovereignty as a prerequisite to their effective competitiveness in the global order. From the agenda of this conference it seems quite clear that the architects correctly viewed the revival of strong local government bodies as a critical pillar for accelerating the process of regionalism in the looming challenges of globalization.
Indeed, one of the major challenges of globalization is how to manage the enlarged opportunities and the heightened dangers and risks especially to small states like ours in the Caribbean. It seems clear that the management of global interdependencies cannot be rooted in yesterday’s concepts of a hegemonic world order. Effective multi-lateralism means more shared responsibility and less paranoia. Sir Shridath Ramphall speaking on the issue of governance in what in calls the ‘new imperium’ made a useful analogy when he said that globalization must not be allowed to run ahead of global governance or it will become “like wild horses not harnessed to a chariot of human good.”
This same view is aptly reiterated in the UN Human Development Report (2000), which as it were ushered in the new UN thinking on the new millennium, and is a most appropriate framework for the deliberations at this Conference:
The challenge of globalization in the new century is not to stop the expansion of global markets. The challenge is to find the rules of the institutions for stronger governance-local, national, regional and global-to preserve the advantages of global markets and competition, but also to provide enough space for human, community and environmental resources to ensure that globalization works for people not just for profits.
Your conference theme, local democracy and good governance find resonance in this view.
Facilitating frameworks for empowering communities through sub-national and decentralized systems is challenging but necessary as central governments alone cannot promote developmental change within the framework of the politics of globalization.
At the regional level the Caribbean Community faces new challenges with respect to governance. The Revised Treaty of Chaguaramus for example has triggered two parallel sets of innovations. The first and more recent, arising out of the Montego Bay Declaration in 2003, proposes strengthening the executive authority of the community to improve the rate of implementation of the regional programmes such as those related to trade, and to the free movement of goods, services and people. This is more or less a re-examination of the recommendation of the West Indian Commission in 1993 for a Caribbean Commission.
The second is the provision that has been made within the Treaty (CARICOM system) for the quasi Cabinet whereby various sector portfolio responsibilities have been allocated to respective Heads of Government and the Bureau of Heads comprising the current, in coming and outgoing Chairpersons of the Conference together with the CARICOM Secretary General that actually functions as an inner Cabinet. The latter is charged with the responsibility of guiding policy and taking decisions in between Conferences of Heads. In addition there are proposals for revitalizing the Association of Caribbean Community Parliamentarians (ACCP), which brings together both government and opposition representatives to deliberate on important regional matters. Strengthening the role of Civil Society through the establishment of a Joint Council is yet another mechanism in the new design of the Community that would in turn spearhead a Forward Together consultation between Civil Society and Heads of Government every three years. Both the ACCP and the Civil Society Council have the potential of widening the base of participation in the affairs of the Community insofar as the discussions of policies at the regional level are expected to be informed by and reinforce those that are taking place at the national. The ACCP and Civil Society Council, which includes labour, NGOs and the business community, are illustrations of the interconnectivity between the Executive authority at the regional level and the grass roots of the Caribbean through the mechanism of decentralization.
CARICOM’s efforts to streamline the governance procedures at the Community level make us quite aware of the challenges that confront the Caribbean Local Government Forum, designed to support local democracy and good governance. Indeed this quest clearly bring into sharp relief the subtle distinction between governance with its emphasis on private sector led development, and government as the more proactive role of state officials in the decision-making process.
This distinction is clarified in two sources. In the 1997 World Development Report, the World Bank identified the importance of increased efficiency in the support of overall development goals. More recently Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz has pointed to the shortcomings of an unconditional reliance of market forces as a strategy for addressing the development problems faced by the developing countries, given the comparatively underdeveloped nature of the productive structures in these countries and the significant discontinuities in the information flows within these economies. Stiglitz, like Amarthya Sen another Nobel laureate in Economics, identifies the need for a more active role for government with a view to ensuring more effective policy outcomes and also guaranteeing social equity.
This is the essence of local democracy. It guarantees greater and more effective interface between officials and constituent groups. It provides for mechanisms that help to eliminate stark inequities that empower groups and that humanizes development. In this regard there is a good case that can be made for increased devolution of central government functions to local authorities and community based organizations. Among the initiatives in support of this trend are the public sector improvement programmes under the poverty reduction strategy being carried out by local governments, and the active role of the private sector and civil society in various debates on governance which have influenced policies at the national and regional levels.
The issue here is finding the right balance between the need to compete at the global level and that of ensuring that the small person, the disadvantaged, and the youth in the communities have the opportunities to participate in the national system with its regional and international outreach. It is at this level that societies can turn around their negativity which so often plagues a nation by evolving a community spirit to reduce violence and crime, to empower the youth and to achieve greater gender parity. It is at the local level that government has an opportunity to create a style of governance based on cooperation, trust and mutual understanding among social partners. However what is required to engender such changes that would ensure grass roots responsiveness and preparedness for participation in the system is a constructive public education. In this regard the involvement of the media, the packaging of material for the schools and community groups, and the involvement of the churches are all part of this enterprise.
This conference has an opportunity to develop an appropriate framework for action that could truly make good governance a reality. By engaging the local groups and making provision for their interconnectivity, local democracy can truly prevail and indeed create the basis for a sustainable community and the national level and Caribbean Community at the regional with the capabilities of competing favourably at the global level. The CARICOM Secretariat stands with you as a willing partner in this exercise and in so doing wish you a successful meeting.
