“Thank you Africa.”

So said Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley yes­ter­day as he thanked Africa for send­ing COVID-19 vac­cines to Cari­com.

He was ad­dress­ing the first Africa-Cari­com Sum­mit of Lead­ers at the time. The sum­mit was geared to­ward for­mal­is­ing the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the African Union and Cari­com through a ne­go­ti­at­ed Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing and ex­plor­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties to strength­en link­ages be­tween both.

Row­ley al­so wel­comed trade and in­vest­ment dis­cus­sions.

Cari­com chair­man Gas­ton Browne, propos­ing plans to bring both re­gions to­geth­er, urged abol­ish­ing visas be­tween African and Cari­com ter­ri­to­ries.

For­mer Cari­com chair­man Row­ley in­di­cat­ed that the meet­ing was his­toric and it was fit­ting that it was be­ing held dur­ing the Unit­ed Na­tions’ In­ter­na­tion­al Decade for Peo­ple of African De­scent (2015-2024).

He said Africa has been Cari­com’s in­valu­able part­ner in sev­er­al plat­forms, in­clud­ing the UN, with­in the Group of 77 and in its deal­ings with Eu­rope un­der the um­brel­la of the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of African, Caribbean and Pa­cif­ic States.

“Unit­ed, we have known suc­cess,” he said.

At­test­ing to the val­ue of clos­er col­lab­o­ra­tion, he said as for­mer Cari­com chair­man when COVID-19 rav­aged Cari­com’s so­cial and eco­nom­ic as­pects, this re­gion pri­ori­tised ear­ly sourc­ing of COVID-19 vac­cines to in­oc­u­late as many as pos­si­ble be­fore ad­di­tion­al threats - like new vari­ants - arose.

“The pre­vail­ing vac­cine in­equity, com­mon­ly called vac­cine apartheid, stymied that plan. I, there­fore, wish to reg­is­ter my sin­cere grat­i­tude to His Ex­cel­len­cy Cyril Ramaphosa, Pres­i­dent of South Africa and His Ex­cel­len­cy Uhu­ru Keny­at­ta, Co-Chair of our Sum­mit, Pres­i­dent Nana Ad­do Aku­fo-Ad­do of Ghana, for the mean­ing­ful dis­cus­sions and in­ter­ven­tions dur­ing my tenure and the prag­mat­ic so­lu­tions ar­rived at,” the PM said.

“Last month, Cari­com be­gan re­ceiv­ing a sub­stan­tial al­lo­ca­tion of vac­cines un­der the African Med­ical Sup­plies Plat­form. Thank you, Africa.”

He said T&T’s first tranche was re­ceived on Au­gust 19.

Row­ley said T&T’s link­ages to Africa run deep, as marked by bi­lat­er­al re­la­tion­ships, ob­serv­er sta­tus at the African Union and High Com­mis­sions in Nige­ria and South Africa and Hon­orary Con­suls in Ghana and Kenya.

“Soon, we too will avail our­selves of the mag­nan­i­mous ges­ture of the gov­ern­ment of Kenya to pro­vide of­fice space for Cari­com’s diplo­mat­ic pres­ence in Africa.”

He said clos­er Africa-Caribbean col­lab­o­ra­tion will be to mu­tu­al ben­e­fit, whether it’s in pur­su­ing de­vel­op­ment fi­nance, re­source util­i­sa­tion and debt sus­tain­abil­i­ty; max­imis­ing the green and blue economies; cli­mate change and oth­er ar­eas.

Among his­to­ry with Africa—in­clud­ing his vis­it to Ghana in 2016 —he cit­ed build­ing on the African En­er­gy Ini­tia­tive spear­head­ed by late for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning.

He said T&T wel­comed the in­clu­sion on yes­ter­day’s agen­da of trade and in­vest­ment. In-per­son ex­changes will al­so boost trade, in­vest­ment and tourism ac­tiv­i­ties. He al­so cit­ed the scope for im­me­di­ate clos­er co­op­er­a­tion in fi­nance and agri­cul­ture.

Row­ley said Cari­com is al­so ac­tive­ly en­gaged in dis­cus­sions to es­tab­lish an in­vest­ment fund to un­lock and sus­tain re­gion­al de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes.

“We trust Africa will in­vest with us,” he said.

He said there’s al­so scope for col­lab­o­ra­tion in the cre­ative sec­tor.

“We must al­so seek ways to mend the so­cio-cul­tur­al dis­so­nance de­rived from the lega­cy of slav­ery,” he added, not­ing ed­u­ca­tion­al pro­grammes and de­vel­op­ment and pro­mo­tion of ge­neal­o­gy or her­itage trac­ing.

Row­ley closed by quot­ing late Ghana pres­i­dent Kwame Nkrumah, “I am not African be­cause I was born in Africa, but be­cause Africa was born in me.”

Ramaphosa, among state­ments wel­com­ing the sum­mit and ini­tia­tives, said part­ner­ship should work to­geth­er to trans­form the for­tunes of all the peo­ple of Africa and those of African de­scent in the Caribbean. He sup­port­ed hav­ing an an­nu­al sum­mit.

Ramaphosa said COVID-19 is­sues demon­strat­ed the val­ue and ne­ces­si­ty of han­dling chal­lenges by work­ing to­geth­er and both re­gions need­ed to share ex­pe­ri­ences, ex­per­tise and tech­nol­o­gy to have bet­ter re­spons­es to COVID-19 and fu­ture pan­demics.

He urged the Caribbean to ex­plore op­por­tu­ni­ties of African free trade ar­eas.

Abol­ish Africa/Caribbean visas—Browne

Cari­com chair­man Gas­ton Browne said yes­ter­day that both re­gions (Africa and Caribbean) had it in their pow­er to de­mand change in­ter­na­tion­al­ly and fight for it but on­ly if they act har­mo­nious­ly.

He not­ed a joint pop­u­la­tion of 1.4 bil­lion peo­ple in both re­gions and vot­ing pow­er of 69 na­tions in the UN and strong re­sources.

”We have glob­al bar­gain­ing pow­er but on­ly if we use it ef­fec­tive­ly, if we sit on that pow­er we’ll con­tin­ue to be mar­gin­alised.”

Browne not­ed high vac­cine rates in the US and EU but a much small­er per­cent­age in Africa. He said Africa and the Caribbean must get to­geth­er to change the sit­u­a­tion and set up sys­tems to pro­mote mu­tu­al so­cio-eco­nom­ic changes, in­creas­ing in­vest­ment and trade and peo­ple to peo­ple ex­changes be­tween both re­gions.

He urged both against al­low­ing be­ing pushed by in­ter­na­tion­al de­ci­sion-mak­ing and al­lud­ed to de­risk­ing, glob­al tax­a­tion, sus­tain­able debt, repa­ra­tions, cli­mate change and oth­er is­sues Cari­com had suf­fered.

Browne pro­posed lead­ers des­ig­nate Sep­tem­ber 7 as African- Caribbean Day and that lead­ers meet an­nu­al­ly on that date to analyse their po­si­tion and dis­cuss ini­tia­tives and au­tho­rise joint ac­tion. He rec­om­mend­ed a fo­rum of Africa-Caribbean ter­ri­to­ries and states man­aged joint­ly the African union and Cari­com.

Browne said the sec­re­tari­ats of each should com­pose a char­ter and mem­o­ran­dum of op­er­a­tion for the fo­rum, in­clud­ing to re­move ob­sta­cles for trade and in­vest­ment. This must be pre­sent­ed by Cari­com’s next meet­ing in six months. He sug­gest­ed mul­ti­lat­er­al aid ser­vice agree­ments – and that all visa re­quire­ments be­tween Africa and Caribbean na­tions be abol­ished.