Ambassadors to CARICOM, representatives of Member States, representatives of Regional Institutions, experts from Baastel, representatives from Directorates of the Secretariat, ladies and gentlemen, good morning.
I have the distinct honour and pleasure to welcome you to the Secretariat, to Guyana and especially to this workshop. I also thank you for your presence here over the next three days, as I know that you all have very busy schedules in your substantive roles. Your participation signals your commitment to being a member of the CARICOM RBM Leadership Group, and I look forward to this continued commitment.
As you would appreciate, the development, implementation and sustainability of the CARICOM RBM System is a necessary and timely initiative as the Community continues to advance the regional integration process.
Rightly entitled “Promoting The Principles Of Managing For Development Results – Furthering The Regional Integration Process”, the CARICOM RBM System is expected to institute a paradigm shift in the way we work as a Community.
From your vantage working in your respective agencies and Ministries, I am sure you will agree that a multitude of work is being undertaken across the Community at both national and regional levels, and some excellent outputs are being produced. Notwithstanding, there is still much more to be achieved, if we, as a Community, are to advance the regional development agenda, and ground our Region as equal partners in the global economy – reason why we asked Member States to have their Planning and Development Ministries represented. Our main shortfall in the way we work as a Community is the issue of not working in a focused and coordinated manner to achieve our desired results. Consequently, the Community suffers from what has been labeled as ‘an implementation deficit’.
It was in response to this ‘implementation deficit’ that the Strategic Plan for the Caribbean Community 2015-2019 – Turning Around CARICOM, was conceived. The Strategic Plan identifies a number of priorities with accompanying outcomes, which the Community must achieve by 2019. Unfortunately, if we continue to work as we currently do in a ‘business as usual’ fashion, we will not achieve the outcomes of our Strategic Plan. But we will also face gaps at the national level. Regional developments will not be streamlined taking into account what is happening at the national level and vice versa.
Our work as implementing partners, i.e, the Secretariat, Member States and Regional Institutions, need to be more focused on achieving the results and outcomes of the Strategic Plan.
It is in our efforts to focus our work more on achieving the desired results, that the CARICOM Secretariat, with funding from the CDB, has embarked on the development, implementation and sustainability of the CARICOM RBM System.
As mentioned before, the CARICOM RBM System will effect a paradigm shift in the way we work, and will institute a shift from focusing on individual activities, on the results we are trying to achieve.
This new approach to working, which is used by a number of International Development Partners, takes a collaborative approach and will help to improve project and programme design, planning, management effectiveness, monitoring, reporting, transparency and accountability.
The success of the CARICOM RBM System depends in large measure on all three implementing partners, and this is why your role as members of the RBM Leadership Group is critical in that process.
In this regard, I have no doubt that you understand the integral role of the Leadership Group in the development, implementation and sustainability of the CARICOM RBM System, including:
Serving as the focal point or forum for institutionalizing RBM in CARICOM;
Coordinating RBM and M&E system development and implementation among the wide range of stakeholders in CARICOM;
Advising on and advocating for improved RBM use and M&E of the Strategic Plan 2015-2019;
Serving as internal mentors/coaches and RBM implementation champions post-Project having acted as counterparts to, and learnt from the team from the consulting firm Baastel;
Facilitating a conducive environment for effective communication and dialogue among diverse stakeholders in order to strengthen their relationships, build trust, promote consensus-building and engage collectively in actions leading to organizational improvement;
Catalysing joint learning and knowledge generation to promote the sharing and use of evidence-informed data across the Community; and
Strengthening organizational capabilities to achieve higher performance.
In short ladies and gentlemen, within this context, you are agents of change, you are pioneers, you are innovators, you are advocates, and of course, as the name of the Group suggest, you are leaders.
The RBM System will be instituted at the Secretariat, and it is our hope that, in the not too distant future, RBM will become the modus operandi of every Member State and every Regional Institution in the Community. In the meantime, we anticipate that you, with the experience and knowledge gathered throughout this process, will serve to advocate for wider institutionalization of RBM in your respective agencies and across the Community.
Ladies and gentlemen, our vulnerability and the many challenges that we face as a Community require that we work smarter and harder. Our socio-economic status means that we are constantly trying to ‘catch-up’ within an ever-changing global structure. Therefore, being more efficient and productive as a Community can no longer be seen as a choice, but as a necessity for our survival. The current environment in which we work demands that our efficiency and productivity can no longer be the rhetoric, we must be able to demonstrate achievement of results and impact of the work that we implement in an evidence-based, systematic manner. We need stringent and robust Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting systems to track our progress and to inform required intervention as early as possible to avert implementation challenges.
The CARICOM RBM System will do just that in addition to changing the way we plan and design our work. Looking at the very eventful agenda for the next three days, I see, in addition to understanding RBM, a substantial amount of time has been dedicated to Monitoring for Results and development of the Performance Measurement Framework. The Performance Measurement Framework will be developed for the Community in the form of a Community Scorecard which will require the development of Community Indicators owned by all implementing partners. Your experience, knowledge and expertise will be of immense value in that process [Anchor] , as we aim to develop specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound (SMART) indicators, that are applicable to all implementing partners, and achievement of the outcomes and results of the Community Strategic Plan. This will require a vigorous system of data collection, and recognizing our limited data collection mechanisms in the Community, your deliberations, I have no doubt, will explore possible mechanisms to overcome this challenge.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we all have a very important role to play in the successful implementation and sustainability of the CARICOM RBM System, and I implore you to be steadfast in executing this role and take advantage of every opportunity to transfer the knowledge you have gained from this process, and to promote and advocate for the adoption of RBM in your respective agencies and in your respective Member States. We all have a common objective, i.e., working towards the sustainable socio-economic development of our Community, through the regional integration process.
I want to thank the CDB again for the funding. I want to ask that while we follow the training sessions, we turn off our cellphones and (2) that anything on your laptop screen should be dealing with this session.
Finally, I would like to wish each and every one of us a very successful workshop, and I look forward to our first face-to-face meeting on Wednesday.
Thank You.
