McClean leading Caricom search

When Minister of Foreign Affairs Senator Maxine McClean comes to New York City next month, she is to play a key role in the selection of the Caribbean Community’s (Caricom’s) next Secretary-General.McClean, who heads a search committee looking for the best possible candidates to succeed Edwin Carrington when he steps down later this year, is expected to present a shortlist of names to seven CARICOM heads at a meeting in New York on the margins of the General assembly.“The Barbados foreign minister is leading a search committee that is developing a shortlist of successors to Carrington,” Camillo Gonsalves, St Vincent’s United Nations (UN)Ambassador told the Daily Nation. “We have several important decisions to come out of the meeting in terms of diplomacy, economic development and the question of the governance of the regional integration movement.”Gonsalves, who until recently was chairman of the Caricom Corps of UN Ambassadors, explained that the prime ministers, presidents and foreign ministers were coming to the city for the opening of the General Assembly session and to participate in the general debate. They will also take the opportunity while in New York to consider proposed “new or revised structures within the region to help improve” Caricom decision-making.“The leaders hope to meet on the margins of the General Assembly and they will take their proposals to the next meeting of heads of government which I believe takes place in Grenada in February,” Gonsalves said.The prime ministers are expected to narrow down the list of Secretary-General candidates.Caricom’s current chairman Bruce Golding, Jamaica’s prime minister, is to preside over the session. Most of the region’s leaders are also coming to New York for a high-level meeting on the Millennium Development Goals.