Some prominent scholars and intellectuals of this region and beyond have recently been offering varying perspectives in Internet discussions on an old but quite important issue – the widening and deepening of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM).
Now, 39 years after its inauguration the bitter truth is that CARICOM has quite a low performance rating in both categories – deepening trade and economic integration, as well as widening of membership.
Some of the participants in the discussions have registered feelings of “despair” for the future, while others pointed to the growing cynicism and distancing by governments of the Greater Caribbean and Central America region who feel that CARICOM has lost its momentum, if not vision, as a once proud flag-bearer of regional economic integration and functional cooperation.
As some of its official defenders anxiously remind critics that CARICOM is more than just about trade. The sad reality is that even in the area of trade, there continues to be sharp criticisms of volume and imbalance among partner states. Jamaica is a recurring complainant.
The harsh reality is that too many of our governments – not ignoring either the regional entrepreneurs – and too many of the ultimate decision-makers in the public/private sectors, seem to have lost the “vision” that inspired the inauguration of CARICOM.
Having forgotten about the challenges located in the Grand Anse Declaration, it should come as no surprise that even if such government and private sector leaders can recall the seminal work of the path-finding West Indian Commission of 1992, they seem to lack the political will to achieve the goals for deepening and widening CARICOM as an authentic regional economic integration movement.
Since many of today’s Heads of Government appear too burdened with varying domestic political and economic challenges, perhaps the current CARICOM chairman Dr Kenny Anthony has an obligation to rise to the big challenge of the moment.
If he cares sufficiently for CARICOM – as I think he does – he could make use of his remaining four odd months as the Community’s chairman to come forward with some new ideas and guidelines to generate fresh initiatives for a wider integration movement and a realistic stick-with-it implementation schedule for decisions unanimously adopted.
He could perhaps begin with an ideas-sharing discourse with P.J. Patterson, the former long-standing Prime Minister of Jamaica. Wishful thinking on my part? Perhaps. But let’s see how many governments can be re-energized in favour of a “wider” and “deeper” CARICOM in a rapidly changing global environment.
• Rickey Singh is a noted Caribbean journalist.