BASSETERRE, St Kitts – Outgoing Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Chairman Dr. Denzil Douglas says despite the ongoing global economic and financial crisis, the 15-member regional integration grouping has remained a “symbol of stability and good governance, reflected in our embrace of democratic processes”.
In a Christmas message to the region, Douglas, who is also the Prime Minister of St Kitts and Nevis, said any reflection on the past year “will no doubt be coloured by the challenges spawned by the current period of global uncertainties.
“Those external upheavals have served to strengthen our resolve to drive the integration movement forward, a stance for which there has been firm support and commitment from you, the regional populace,” he said, adding that the region’s resilience and outstanding qualities “have enabled our Community to remain a symbol of stability and good governance, reflected in our embrace of democratic processes”.
Douglas said the challenges, including those directly related to the global economic and financial crises have honed the region’s attention particularly on finding creative ways to confront them.
“We have sought, for example, to encourage foreign investment from new areas and welcomed the interest shown by India, China and Japan, all of whom mounted trade and investment missions to the Region seeking opportunities.
“The continuing increases in the prices of food and the search for food sovereignty have engaged our attention as a Community. Our stakeholders in the agriculture sector, as evinced most recently in Dominica where they participated in the Caribbean Week of Agriculture, are working assiduously to find a solution to those particular challenges.”
But Douglas said it is imperative for the region to encourage the stakeholders by buying and consuming locally grown food “so that we could lower our very high food import bill, and at the same time, maintain healthy lifestyles”.
Douglas said there is much the region could be proud of over the past 12 months, including the leadership role it played on the international stage.
“As a result of the Community’s tireless advocacy, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly agreed to convene a High Level Meeting (HLM) on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) which was held in September in New York, although the outcome may not have been as ambitious as we had envisaged.
Regionally, we have made great strides in initiating operations of the Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA), a consolidation of five regional health institutions.”
He said the new health agency will come on stream early in the New Year.
On the issue of the environment, he said the Caribbean continued its advocacy role at the UN Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa earlier this month.
Douglas said that on a further reflection of 2011 “we can do so with a measure of comfort that we have fulfilled the charge delivered at the beginning of the year by my predecessor, the Honourable Tillman Thomas, Prime Minister of Grenada, to make 2011 a “watershed year”, a year when a new generation of leaders would take their place in the Community.
“At that time, we were confident that we would weather the multiple storms that were facing us by dint of strengthening community bonds, cooperating with each other and utilising all the skills available to us.
“In our era of new beginnings, one of my first tasks as Chairman of the Community was to install Ambassador Irwin LaRocque as the new Secretary-General of CARICOM, an occasion which, for me, heralded a turning point in the history of our Community. He has begun the task of finding creative ways to chart the Community’s course in the current global environment,” Dr. Douglas added. (CMC)
