I welcome the opportunity to make a few comments at this consultation to review the Draft Report and proposed strategy prepared by the Consultancy firm, European Profiles and Consortium.
I am advised that the work was done through a project implemented by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) which focused on the understanding of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy . The laudable objective of the Project is to “promote buy-in within rural communities, and stimulate and encourage their active participation in the CSME” through the development and implementation of a public education strategy.
The consultants have posited that the challenge is and continues to be how to meet the information needs of all stakeholders on the issues relating to the progression of the integration process and how to operate and make a living within the new regimes. The have pointed to the rural community as one critical stakeholder group especially, in its capacity as a source of agricultural produce to the consumers within the CSME. Indeed many producers and inhabitants in rural communities are unaware of the CSME. They are also not able to access opportunities because of challenges in understanding how to meet market access requirements such as Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary requirements.
But I would like to posit that our greatest challenge, is in recognizing our industries not as belonging to any particular member state but belong to CARICOM. And a greater challenge still is the recognizing our people as not belonging to any particular member state but belonging to CARICOM. This is the premise on which rural buy- in must begin.
And even as we seek to have rural community buy-in we should not loose the opportunity to learn from these very communities that we are seeking to re educate and integrate. The lesson to be learnt lies in the genuine sprit of corporativism that transcends all these communities.
Indeed even as we seek “buy-in” from our rural communities have we considered what is likely to be the welcome after they have been “bought.” Is CSME ready to facilitate the Young Women’s Christian Association who is steadily developing their Green Seasoning Processing operations in the Region 5, GAPA West Berbice Group, Blue Flames Women Group of Region One, Pomeroon Women’s Group, who is currently involved in the processing not only green seasoning but fruits as well, or even the Perth Farmer’s Group who is currently developing a pork and ham enterprise in West Berbice.
In 1989 the members of CARICOM agreed to implement an integrated development strategy to take us into the 21st century. The strategy was elaborated in the Grand Anse Declaration.
The Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas provides the legal basis for the CSME’s operations. It extended beyond just facilitating the liberalisation of intra-regional trade. It extended to the creation of a Single CARICOM economic space which would provide a base market to nurture industries and enterprises by the free movement of resources. It was visualised that this Single Market or single economic space would have been put in place by 2006. This would have been followed by the establishment by 2008 of the Single Economy to further harmonise economic, monetary and fiscal policies and measures within CARICOM.
It is now 2010 and we have not kept apace with the earlier projections. We may have been overly ambitious and neglected some important steps along the way. We have been advised, like a mantra, that if the CSME is to succeed, the gap between the richest and the poorest countries needs to be narrowed Development of the Region must not be lopsided.
In addition apart from allowing for the free movement of capital, goods and services, the CSME also allows for the free movement of labour – initially in a few restricted categories. This freedom of movement can be of significant benefit, but there is a huge potential pool of skilled labour in the Caribbean diaspora.
To this end if the CSME is to fulfill its mandate, it must lay the stage for business to operate in an economic space that facilitates growth and development and create the conditions for extra-regional expansion into the global economy. The establishment of the CSME is the most ambitious enterprise undertaken by the Anglo Caribbean since Independence and has the potential to unlock and unleash latent economic energy in the Caribbean, to the benefit all its citizens and future generations.
More recently, in July 2007 the Heads of Government approved the “Single Development Vision” to guide the CSME development process.
The agriculture-fisheries-forestry industry has been recognized as one of the economic drivers of the Single Development Vision. It is this very sector that sees the greatest benefit from rural enterprise development. In Guyana the importance of the agriculture-fisheries-forestry industry, which primarily involves rural communities can be recognized by the 400 to 500 rural farmers currently involved in our Rural Enterprise and Agricultural Development (READ) Project which has been undertaken by my ministry.
The Rural Enterprise and Agricultural Development (READ) Project is to be developed over a six year period and is being implemented under our comprehensive Agricultural Diversification Strategy. Its overall goal can simply be described as economic empowerment of the rural communities through agricultural trade. We believe that agricultural development stimulates rural development. And rural communities buy-in to the CSME is dependent on how much member states allow agriculture to be a vibrant regional production and trading enterprise.
I am happy to know that this project works in the rural communities along specific commodity lines developing the value chain and providing support to all its actors through principles that are market led and demand driven. More importantly, however, is that it first forges producer cooperation with the aim of establishing producer cooperatives.
In any rural development effort it is important to recognize the cultural practices of the communities; and in an effort to engender change one must develop a strategy that seeks to augment the community efforts and fosters greater community development, thereby ensuring the sustainability of any developmental efforts and more importantly the development of the community.
An example to the Region could be the READ Project which serves the rural communities in the coastal regions of Regions 2,3,4,5,6 and 10.
READ II is currently being formulated for very early implementation. It will serve the hinterland regions of Regions 1, 7, 8 and 9. I have mentioned the READ Project because it may be possible to harness current efforts in rural communities with the public education strategy of this CARICOM project. It is my thinking that collaboration may more quickly develop specific, culturally appropriate efforts that use local resources to guide the community to more advanced levels of readiness eventually leading to successful effort implementation.
In Guyana, our rural development approach has been embedded in the emphasis we place on agriculture, especially the new agriculture systems. Visit our rural communities and you can see the viable signs of progress and this generally reflects the growth and economic sustainability of agriculture in that particular area.
I wish in closing to place on record the Government of Guyana’s unequivocal support for and commitment to the CSME as a genuine vehicle for regional economic integration, social transformation and prosperity. Given the reality of globalization, trade liberalization and the consequent coalescing of countries into trade blocks, regional economic integration is an absolute necessity for national and regional development. But we must move beyond the rhetoric and our people will only buy-in if they see and feel the results of the efforts, commitments and decisions we have made so far.
I am confident that your deliberations will be fruitful and I look forward to being apprised of the findings of the Study and the development of the Messages for the rural communities.
