The 30th Session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of states is scheduled to get underway tomorrow in Paramaribo, Suriname amid a cloud of uncertainty over the level of the Caribbean Community’s participation in the seventh summit of the 79-member bloc.
The two-day biannual meeting of parliamentarians comes within weeks of the Summit of Heads of State and Government scheduled for December 13 to14 in Equatorial Guinea.
The agenda would be largely driven by the central theme The Future of the ACP Group In A Changing World – Challenges And Opportunities. Disappointingly, however, the independent member countries of CARICOM that were quite influential in the inauguration of the ACP in 1975 are now expected to have low level representation.
Disappointment lies in the reality that for all the eloquent rhetoric from leaders about the problems and challenges shared with other nations of the ACP, it seems that we may have a virtual repetition of the embarrassing experience of the sixth summit in Ghana in 2008 when CARICOM was virtually missing in action.
Currently, like their partners in Africa and the Pacific, the Greater Caribbean bloc of states (including Cuba and the Dominican Republic) are struggling for survival in a worsening global environment of economic recession, political/military conflicts, expanding criminality and climbing joblessness – the latter quite acute among the region’s youth.
It is, therefore, self-evident that this is the time for the Caribbean to be more forthcoming in stimulating leadership commitment to deepen and widen the functions and representational profile of the ACP rather than, as it appears, to spread disillusionment and, worse, languish in a retreat mode.
Successive governments of the ACP have come to be aware of the necessity to function in a wider international environment and, consequently seek structured relationships, such as, for instance, the powerful G-20 Group.
The ACP group represents a population of 2.5 billion diverse peoples and vast resources, compared with the EU’s approximately 500 million.
The EU’s collective voice and influence are well represented at both the level of the G-8 as well as within the wider G-20, broadened in recent years to include Brazil and South Africa. But initiatives of significance has yet come from either the ACP or the G-20 to facilitate access to that most powerful economic forum in the world.
Miniscule representation now could send a disturbing message to African and Pacific partners about apparent cynicism and detachment by regional leaders.
• Rickey Singh is a noted Caribbean journalist.
