Seen as a whole, the 20 na­tions of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) oc­cu­py land space to­talling 463,000 km² across an arch­i­pel­ago and parts of Cen­tral and South Amer­i­ca. In terms of pop­u­la­tion, Cari­com is more than 18 mil­lion strong, cul­tur­al­ly and eth­ni­cal­ly di­verse with eco­nom­ic po­ten­tial that is yet to be ful­ly re­alised.

These unique char­ac­ter­is­tics were recog­nised by the high-rank­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the coun­tries and mul­ti­lat­er­al or­gan­i­sa­tions around the world who were in Port-of-Spain this week for the 45th Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment of the Cari­com and cel­e­bra­tions to mark the 50th An­niver­sary of the sign­ing of the Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas. To nav­i­gate a fu­ture filled with the un­cer­tain­ties of cli­mate change and geopo­lit­i­cal threats, these are the strengths and as­sets that must be har­nessed, re­quir­ing that the re­gion make ur­gent and de­ci­sive steps to achieve that elu­sive goal of full re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion.

The chal­lenge for the Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment is to fol­low through on the com­mit­ments made over those three his­toric days, set­ting aside once and for all the in­su­lar­i­ty that has dogged one of the longest sur­viv­ing in­te­gra­tion move­ments in the de­vel­op­ing world for the half-cen­tu­ry that it has ex­ist­ed.

Time has proven the re­silience of this re­gion­al group­ing birthed out of the ash­es of the West In­di­an Fed­er­a­tion and Carif­ta. How­ev­er, in a world that is rapid­ly evolv­ing, it can no longer be busi­ness as usu­al for Cari­com.

Look­ing ahead, re­gion­al lead­ers must en­sure that the pledge made this past week for the free move­ment of all Cari­com na­tion­als with­in the Com­mu­ni­ty by March 31, 2024, is kept. There re­al­ly is no rea­son why at this stage in the re­gion’s de­vel­op­ment na­tion­als are not al­ready en­joy­ing the right to freely move and re­main in­def­i­nite­ly in any Cari­com mem­ber state.

This pro­vi­sion is a key as­pect of the Cari­com Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my (CSME), im­ple­ment­ed in stages–some­times at a snail’s pace over sev­er­al years. It took 13 years, from the 1989 de­ci­sion by Heads of Gov­ern­ment to es­tab­lish the CSME be­fore the Re­vised Treaty was signed in 2002. Com­ple­tion of the process should take place at an ac­cel­er­at­ed pace.

The re­gion al­so needs to see in­creased mo­men­tum in work­ing to­ward oth­er ob­jec­tives, such as the up­dat­ing of ex­ist­ing trade agree­ments, strength­en­ing of trade and eco­nom­ic link­ages with non-tra­di­tion­al part­ners, and more strate­gic and sus­tained en­gage­ment with tra­di­tion­al hemi­spher­ic part­ners.

Of par­tic­u­lar ur­gency is the need to se­cure fi­nanc­ing to ad­dress the im­pact of cli­mate change in our cor­ner of the globe, made of many small is­land de­vel­op­ing states (SIDS) that are sus­cep­ti­ble to the ef­fects of glob­al warm­ing. The planned re­gion­al ap­proach to COP 28 should en­sure a strong pres­ence and a loud­er voice for the re­gion on key ac­tion ar­eas such as fi­nance for adap­tion and loss and dam­age, ac­cess to fi­nance for SIDS, de-risk­ing, and debt sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

The just con­clud­ed 45th Cari­com Meet­ing was an his­toric com­mem­o­ra­tion of many re­gion­al goals achieved over 50 years. Whether this is the long-an­tic­i­pat­ed turn­ing point in Caribbean af­fairs still re­mains to be seen.

Hope­ful­ly, by the time the Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment as­sem­ble in Guyana for their 46th Meet­ing next Ju­ly, there will be tan­gi­ble proof of the progress made to­ward a stronger, more unit­ed Caribbean.