The Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) group­ing says it is mak­ing sig­nif­i­cant strides to­wards en­hanc­ing ocean gov­er­nance and sus­tain­able man­age­ment of ma­rine re­sources.

The 15-mem­ber re­gion­al group­ing said that with the sup­port of a £190,000 (One British pound=US#1.29 cents) grant from the Unit­ed King­dom’s For­eign, Com­mon­wealth & De­vel­op­ment Of­fice (UK FC­DO), the Guyana-based CARI­COM Sec­re­tari­at is em­bark­ing on a com­pre­hen­sive ini­tia­tive to de­vel­op a ro­bust frame­work for sus­tain­able ocean man­age­ment.

Ti­tled ‘To­wards A Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) Frame­work for Strength­en­ing Oceans Gov­er­nance – Ef­fec­tive En­gage­ment in the In­ter­na­tion­al Oceans Agen­da’, the project aims to sup­port the col­lab­o­ra­tive de­vel­op­ment of a CARI­COM Blue Econ­o­my Pol­i­cy.

“This ini­tia­tive is a tes­ta­ment to CARI­COM’s ded­i­ca­tion to fos­ter­ing a sus­tain­able blue econ­o­my that ben­e­fits all Mem­ber States in recog­ni­tion of the sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion the Caribbean Sea makes to CARI­COM’s de­vel­op­ment pri­or­i­ties,” said David Pren­der­gast, the di­rec­tor, of Sec­toral Pro­grammes at the CARI­COM Sec­re­tari­at.

CARI­COM said that the pri­ma­ry ob­jec­tive of the project is to ar­tic­u­late a pol­i­cy that fos­ters im­proved gov­er­nance, re­gion­al co­or­di­na­tion and ul­ti­mate­ly, en­hanced ca­pac­i­ty of mem­ber states to sus­tain­ably man­age both sov­er­eign and shared ma­rine re­sources.

The pol­i­cy will build on in­ter­na­tion­al mo­men­tum for sus­tain­able ocean eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment, in­clud­ing the An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Agen­da for Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States (SIDS), Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals (SDGs), and the Com­mon­wealth Blue Char­ter.

The project al­so seeks to up­scale na­tion­al suc­cess­es and progress made un­der the UK’s Sus­tain­able Ma­rine Economies Pro­gramme.

“CARI­COM mem­ber states are in­creas­ing­ly fo­cus­ing on their Ex­clu­sive Eco­nom­ic Zones (EEZs) to un­lock growth and de­vel­op­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties. These op­por­tu­ni­ties span var­i­ous sec­tors, in­clud­ing fish­eries, en­er­gy, na­ture tourism, and coastal and ocean ser­vices like car­bon se­ques­tra­tion,” said the CARI­COM Sec­re­tari­at.

It said that in the com­ing months, the project will un­der­take a com­pre­hen­sive as­sess­ment of the pol­i­cy, and the in­sti­tu­tion­al and le­gal land­scape with­in CARI­COM mem­ber states con­cern­ing sus­tain­able ocean-based economies.

“There will al­so be a se­ries of vir­tu­al and in-per­son con­sul­ta­tions to en­gage stake­hold­ers, share na­tion­al progress, and iden­ti­fy re­gion­al pri­or­i­ty ac­tions,” it added.

GEORGE­TOWN, Guyana, Oct 25, CMC

CMC/gt/ir/2024.