By Indi Mclymont-Lafayette and Horace Fisher,
December 13, 2009: Copenhagen
Potential rise in sea levels threathen small island states
No Retreat, No Surrender: Small islands gaining support as they fight for survival
Leave a reply
Tag Archives: crisis
Rotary Speaks
MY VOCATION
PRESENTATION AT THE ROTARY CLUB OF LIAMUIGA’S VOCATIONAL SERVICES MEETING BY SARGEANT AT ARMS OF THE CLUB, ARCH DEACON VALENTINE HODGE
When President Laverne invited me to speak on this subject though she had given me about 3/5 minutes, I was not sure whether it would be the main speech for this meeting, or just one of many. So as a good Anglican I decided to take the middle of the road – via media is a good Anglican tradition – you’re neither hot nor cold, and by the same token – you’re neither young nor old. Continue reading
Important CARICOM Heads of Government Conference Achieves Significant Progress
GEORGETOWN, Guyana (GINA)
The 30th Heads of Government Conference of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), which was expected to be contentious, with migration and intra-regional trade rows threatening to disrupt the discussions, ended last evening with significant progress being made in several areas.
Global Economic and Financial Crisis
Recognizing that several countries in the Caribbean have been adversely affected by the global economic and financial crisis, the Heads of Government have taken the bold step of establishing the first ever regional Task Force of a political nature to find solutions for the region.
The Task Force, which comprises Prime Ministers Patrick Manning of Trinidad & Tobago, Bruce Golding of Jamaica, Ralph Gonsalves of St. Vincent & the Grenadines, David Thompson of Barbados and President Bharrat Jagdeo of Guyana, who will be the Chairman of the Task Force, is expected to be set in motion soon, considering the urgency of the issues it seeks to address.
Additional technical members of the Task Force include the CARICOM Secretary-General; President of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB); Director-General of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS); and the Director of the Caribbean Centre for Money and Finance (CCMF). The tourism industry in the Caribbean, which is a significant revenue earner for countries such as The Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica and others, has been decimated with fewer persons around the world travelling, and the financial service sector has been faced with difficulties stemming from the financial meltdown in the developed world and from the failures of the CL Financial and Stanford Groups.
Additionally, the real sectors have been affected by the contagious effect of the global downturn. In response, many countries do not have the budgetary space to conduct counter-cyclical spending to ease the effects of the crisis.
At the closing press conference on Saturday evening, the Chairman of CARICOM, President Jagdeo, stated, “It was recognized that we have to do a series of things but some of them would have to be very urgently done.”
The tasks before the Community are to mobilize the resources necessary to assist these countries and develop medium-to-long-term development strategies to set them on the right path. Earlier Saturday, the President had highlighted two options to obtain the resources needed. The President had stressed that the mobilization of CARICOM internal resources could be pivotal.
“We have significant reserves that are all held outside of the region. I think we have to make sure that we have a policy to invest those reserves. I think we can use our own resources to try to push forward development in our region,” he stated. Continue reading
Caricom Leaders Must Move The Region Forward Or Pay The Price
When heads of government of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) meet in early July, a big responsibility will fall on the shoulders of Guyana’s President Bharat Jagdeo as chairman to heal the wounds that are causing the regional project to haemorrhage.
President Jagdeo will have to dig deep within himself for the diplomatic skills that will be necessary not only to suppress his own annoyance over recent events in CARICOM, but also to guide his colleague leaders to practical measures that will fix the rifts between them and set the Caricom ship upon an agreed course of further progress that benefits all.
All other CARICOM leaders will have to contribute to the healing process by showing a high level of maturity in their discourse with each other and by eschewing a desire for purely short-term national advantage in favour of longer term gain for all.
The economic prospects that CARICOM countries face are deeply troubling. Addressing them at every level, especially international bargaining, calls for a united CARICOM, not a fractious one. Continue reading
The US and The Caribbean
In a few weeks time the President of the United States, Barack Obama, will attend the Summit of the Americas in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad.
Since his inauguration, expectations have been rising about a new US relationship with the Caribbean. Sadly, there is in this a large measure of wishful thinking.
While no one should deny that the arrival of a popular first black President is important for the Caribbean both perceptually and emotionally, the expectation of any dramatically changed relationship fails to recognise the very different concerns about the world and the hemisphere that the Caribbean and the US have.
Having spent much of the last week in Washington, it is clear that there is a need to manage Caribbean popular expectation downwards about the substance of the summit and to look more specifically at the ways in which subsequent meetings will determine how the region’s future relationship with the United States will develop. Continue reading