The re­gion­al re­cov­ery from the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, food and en­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty, as well as the sit­u­a­tions in Haiti and Venezuela, were among the key is­sues dom­i­nat­ing dis­cus­sions at the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed Forty-Third Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM), which was held from 3-5 Ju­ly 2022, in Suri­name. 

The Meet­ing was chaired by the Pres­i­dent of Suri­name, His Ex­cel­len­cy Chan­drikaper­sad San­tokhi, and fea­tured spe­cial guests such as Unit­ed Na­tions Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al His Ex­cel­len­cy An­tónio Guter­res; His Ex­cel­len­cy Georges Re­be­lo Pin­to Chikoti, the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of African, Caribbean and Pa­cif­ic States (OACPS); and His Ex­cel­len­cy Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir, Min­is­ter of State for For­eign Af­fairs of Sau­di Ara­bia.

En­er­gy se­cu­ri­ty

A call was made for the Unit­ed States to con­sid­er re­mov­ing its sanc­tions on Venezuela to al­low CARI­COM coun­tries to ben­e­fit from the Petro­Caribe ini­tia­tive.  CARI­COM Heads al­so not­ed such a move al­so would fa­cil­i­tate progress on the ex­ploita­tion of cross-bor­der nat­ur­al gas fields be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and Venezuela.

Re­gion­al lead­ers not­ed the im­por­tance of us­ing and har­ness­ing hy­dro­car­bon re­sources with a view to re­duc­ing de­pen­den­cy on ex­ter­nal re­sources and sup­ply­ing the grow­ing glob­al needs aris­ing out of the Rus­sia-Ukraine con­flict.

En­er­gy di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion al­so was ac­knowl­edged as crit­i­cal, with Gov­ern­ment Heads agree­ing to make use of sig­nif­i­cant as­sets in the Re­gion with im­me­di­ate ex­ist­ing ca­pac­i­ty in LNG and fer­tilis­er for agri­cul­ture.  They al­so agreed to de­vel­op the re­new­able en­er­gy sec­tor through build­ing in­fra­struc­ture to meet re­gion­al pow­er gen­er­a­tion needs.

COVID-19 and health se­cu­ri­ty

With re­gard to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, Heads of Gov­ern­ment ac­knowl­edged a sub­stan­tial num­ber of cas­es still are be­ing re­port­ed across the Re­gion. They com­mend­ed the Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (CARPHA)’s con­tin­ued com­pre­hen­sive re­sponse to COVID-19 in keep­ing with the Agency’s man­date.

They al­so ac­knowl­edged that the im­pact of COVID-19 has demon­strat­ed that, as coun­tries ad­vance to­wards re­cov­ery and re­silience, a whole-of-gov­ern­ment and so­ci­ety ap­proach was need­ed which care­ful­ly bal­anced pub­lic health mea­sures and eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery pro­grammes.

The Heads urged the mul­ti-lat­er­al fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions to recog­nise the ur­gent need for as­sis­tance so Mem­ber States can strength­en so­cial safe­ty nets dec­i­mat­ed by the sup­port ren­dered to cit­i­zens dur­ing the COVID 19 pan­dem­ic.

CARI­COM Lead­ers stat­ed that re­spon­si­ble in­di­vid­ual be­hav­iours, vac­ci­na­tion, strength­ened health sys­tems and con­tin­ued and en­hanced vig­i­lance, all are es­sen­tial fac­tors for suc­cess­ful­ly nav­i­gat­ing through this cur­rent phase of the pan­dem­ic. 

They al­so ac­knowl­edged that the in­ci­dence of Long COVID could re­sult in a sig­nif­i­cant in­crease in chron­ic ill­ness and dis­abil­i­ty that could po­ten­tial­ly fur­ther over­whelm the health sec­tor in­clud­ing its labour force, es­pe­cial­ly where coun­tries al­ready had a high bur­den of Non-Com­mu­ni­ca­ble Dis­eases (NCDs).  Heads of Gov­ern­ment not­ed the move to­wards pan­dem­ic re­cov­ery pro­vides an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­struc­ture health care ser­vices and pub­lic health pro­grammes us­ing the lessons learnt to re­spond to re-emerg­ing and new dis­eases which may cause pan­demics.

Food se­cu­ri­ty

Dur­ing the meet­ing, the Min­is­te­r­i­al Task Force on Food Pro­duc­tion and Food Se­cu­ri­ty (MTF) gave an up­date on the CARI­COM Agri-Food Sys­tems Agen­da, cre­at­ed to ad­dress the cur­rent food se­cu­ri­ty chal­lenges and ris­ing food prices and to achieve the 25 by 2025 Vi­sion—the re­duc­tion of the food im­port bill by 25 per­cent by 2025.

Sev­er­al Mem­ber States have de­vel­oped and sub­mit­ted their na­tion­al tar­gets, which will con­tribute to the at­tain­ment of the 25 by 2025 tar­gets. Mem­ber States are re­quired to re­port on their progress month­ly.

The Coun­cil for Trade and Eco­nom­ic De­vel­op­ment (COT­ED) was man­dat­ed to con­clude, by the end of Ju­ly 2022, var­i­ous ini­tia­tives and pro­grammes, aimed at the re­moval of Non-Tar­iff Bar­ri­ers to In­tra-Re­gion­al Trade.

The CARI­COM Pri­vate Sec­tor Or­ga­ni­za­tion Inc. (CP­SO) was asked to ac­cel­er­ate im­ple­men­ta­tion of its var­i­ous agri­cul­tur­al in­vest­ment projects.  The MTF and CP­SO have iden­ti­fied 19 po­ten­tial in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties for dis­plac­ing ex­tra-re­gion­al agri-food im­ports among CARI­COM Mem­ber States.

Lead Head of Gov­ern­ment with re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for Agri­cul­ture and Agri­cul­ture De­vel­op­ment in the CARI­COM Qua­si-Cab­i­net, His Ex­cel­len­cy Mo­hammed Ir­faan Ali, Pres­i­dent of the Co­op­er­a­tive Re­pub­lic of Guyana, was com­mend­ed for the suc­cess of the CARI­COM Agri-In­vest­ment Fo­rum and Ex­po held in Guyana from 19-21 May 2022.

CARI­COM Lead­ers en­dorsed the Ac­tion Plan and Out­come State­ment of the Fo­rum & Ex­po, which called for pri­or­i­ty ac­tion to be cen­tred around four main ar­eas; Food In­se­cu­ri­ty, Re­gion­al Trans­porta­tion, Trade Bar­ri­ers, and Women and Youth in Agri­cul­ture.

Spe­cial Guests

Dur­ing his ad­dress to CARI­COM Heads, Unit­ed Na­tions Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al His Ex­cel­len­cy An­tónio Guter­res stressed that the voice of the Re­gion was very im­por­tant in the dis­cus­sions around cli­mate change, as the Caribbean was on the front line of the phe­nom­e­non.

His Ex­cel­len­cy Georges Re­be­lo Pin­to Chikoti, the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of African, Caribbean and Pa­cif­ic States (OACPS), ad­dressed the chal­lenges posed by shifts in the cur­rent geopo­lit­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment, cli­mate change, and eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery from the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.  CARI­COM Heads agreed to con­tin­ue seek­ing the sup­port of the African Union and the Gov­ern­ment of In­dia in their quest for repa­ra­tions for the vic­tims of slav­ery and na­tive geno­cide, and to this end, they urged the OACPS to take a lead­ing and ac­tive role in sup­port­ing CARI­COM in its quest for repa­ra­tions and to ob­tain re­dress for slav­ery and oth­er atroc­i­ties com­mit­ted against per­sons of African de­scent. 

They em­pha­sized the im­por­tance of in­tra-ACP col­lab­o­ra­tion and ad­vo­ca­cy on the glob­al is­sue of mi­gra­tion giv­en the wide-spread acts of dis­crim­i­na­tion and in­jus­tice against mi­grants.

His Ex­cel­len­cy Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir, Min­is­ter of State for For­eign Af­fairs of Sau­di Ara­bia, sug­gest­ed to CARI­COM that an in­sti­tu­tion­al frame­work for en­gage­ments at the lev­el of Lead­ers and Min­is­ters should be es­tab­lished as well as a frame­work for in­vest­ment in the re­gion.

Spe­cial Guests

Dur­ing his ad­dress to CARI­COM Heads, Unit­ed Na­tions Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al His Ex­cel­len­cy An­tónio Guter­res stressed that the voice of the Re­gion was very im­por­tant in the dis­cus­sions around cli­mate change, as the Caribbean was on the front line of the phe­nom­e­non.

His Ex­cel­len­cy Georges Re­be­lo Pin­to Chikoti, the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of African, Caribbean and Pa­cif­ic States (OACPS), ad­dressed the chal­lenges posed by shifts in the cur­rent geopo­lit­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment, cli­mate change, and eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery from the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.  CARI­COM Heads agreed to con­tin­ue seek­ing the sup­port of the African Union and the Gov­ern­ment of In­dia in their quest for repa­ra­tions for the vic­tims of slav­ery and na­tive geno­cide, and to this end, they urged the OACPS to take a lead­ing and ac­tive role in sup­port­ing CARI­COM in its quest for repa­ra­tions and to ob­tain re­dress for slav­ery and oth­er atroc­i­ties com­mit­ted against per­sons of African de­scent. 

They em­pha­sized the im­por­tance of in­tra-ACP col­lab­o­ra­tion and ad­vo­ca­cy on the glob­al is­sue of mi­gra­tion giv­en the wide-spread acts of dis­crim­i­na­tion and in­jus­tice against mi­grants.

His Ex­cel­len­cy Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir, Min­is­ter of State for For­eign Af­fairs of Sau­di Ara­bia, sug­gest­ed to CARI­COM that an in­sti­tu­tion­al frame­work for en­gage­ments at the lev­el of Lead­ers and Min­is­ters should be es­tab­lished as well as a frame­work for in­vest­ment in the re­gion.

Who at­tend­ed the meet­ing

The Forty-Third Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) was held from 3-5 Ju­ly 2022. 

Chair of the Con­fer­ence, the Pres­i­dent of Suri­name, His Ex­cel­len­cy Chan­drikaper­sad San­tokhi presided over the pro­ceed­ings.

Oth­er Mem­bers of the Con­fer­ence in at­ten­dance were: Prime Min­is­ter of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, the Ho­n­ourable Gas­ton Browne; Prime Min­is­ter of The Ba­hamas, Ho­n­ourable Philip Davis; Prime Min­is­ter of Bar­ba­dos, Ho­n­ourable Mia Amor Mot­t­ley, Q.C; MP; Prime Min­is­ter of Be­lize, Ho­n­ourable John Briceño;  Prime Min­is­ter of Do­mini­ca, Ho­n­ourable Roo­sevelt Sker­rit; Prime Min­is­ter of Grena­da, Ho­n­ourable Dick­on Mitchell; Pres­i­dent of Guyana, His Ex­cel­len­cy Mo­hamed Ir­faan Ali; Prime Min­is­ter of Haiti, the Ho­n­ourable Ariel Hen­ry; Pre­mier of Montser­rat,  Ho­n­ourable Joseph Far­rell; Prime Min­is­ter of Saint Lu­cia, Ho­n­ourable Philip Pierre; the Prime Min­is­ter of St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines, Dr the Ho­n­ourable Ralph Gon­salves; and the Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Dr the Ho­n­ourable Kei­th Row­ley.

Ja­maica was rep­re­sent­ed by Sen­a­tor the Hon. Kam­i­na John­son-Smith Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs and For­eign Trade; St Kitts and Nevis was rep­re­sent­ed by Am­bas­sador Li­onel Syd­ney Os­borne, Am­bas­sador to CARI­COM.

As­so­ciate Mem­bers in at­ten­dance were: Bermu­da rep­re­sent­ed by Hon. Wal­ter H. Roban Deputy Pre­mier and Min­is­ter of Home Af­fairs; British Vir­gin Is­lands rep­re­sent­ed by Pre­mier, Ho­n­ourable Dr. Na­talio Wheat­ley; and the Turks and Caicos Is­lands rep­re­sent­ed by Pre­mier Ho­n­ourable Charles Mis­ick.