In ho­n­our of Cari­com’s 50th an­niver­sary, the De­vel­op­ment of Bank of Latin Amer­i­ca (CAF) is chang­ing its cor­po­rate brand­ing to the “The De­vel­op­ment Bank of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean.”

CAF Pres­i­dent Ser­gio Di­az-Grana­dos made the an­nounce­ment yes­ter­day as he and oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al guests at Cari­com’s 50th-an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions took part in a spe­cial trib­ute ses­sion at the Hy­att Re­gency host­ed by Cari­com chair­man Prime Min­is­ter Roo­sevelt Sker­rit of Do­mini­ca.

Al­so speak­ing at the ses­sion was the on­ly sur­viv­ing sig­na­to­ry to the Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas, P Austin Bram­ble, for­mer chief min­is­ter of Montser­rat, who said at age 92 he couldn’t claim to re­mem­ber ac­cu­rate­ly what oc­curred in 1973 but re­called that it was very chal­leng­ing “and not easy”.

Bram­ble said the fact that Cari­com had en­dured for 50 years sug­gests that those with the vi­sion, and who did the plan­ning and signed the Treaty “may have at least got some things right”.

Chi­na’s for­eign af­fairs rep­re­sen­ta­tive gave a state­ment on Chi­na’s re­la­tions with the re­gion­al group­ing, while Cana­da’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive Manin­der Sid­hu said his coun­try sup­ports Caribbean trade and will con­tin­ue to lis­ten to the re­gion’s needs and work as a strate­gic part­ner. Sid­hu said Prime Min­is­ter Justin Trudeau looked for­ward to meet­ing re­gion­al lead­ers at the Cana­da/Cari­com sum­mit in Sep­tem­ber.

David Ruf­fley, UK Min­is­ter for the Caribbean, brought a con­grat­u­la­to­ry mes­sage from King Charles III. He not­ed Cari­com’s con­dem­na­tion of the Russ­ian in­va­sion of Ukraine and its cli­mate change con­cerns.

Com­mon­wealth Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Baroness Pa­tri­cia Scot­land de­scribed Cari­com as a cher­ished friend and mem­ber that had of­fered the world so much.

“Fifty years 0f sol­i­dar­i­ty, of stand­ing up for what’s right and giv­ing a voice to the vul­ner­a­ble,” she said.

Scot­land said as a Do­mini­can, she was proud to be “part of you and to come from you.”

South Ko­rea Prime Min­is­ter Han Duck-soo said his coun­try will make a five-fold in­crease in its con­tri­bu­tion to the Ko­rea-Cari­com Co­op­er­a­tion Fund next year. He said Cari­com has been a stead­fast friend and South Ko­rea is com­mit­ted to build­ing long-term and sus­tain­able co­op­er­a­tion in ar­eas such as cli­mate change, ma­rine en­vi­ron­ment, food se­cu­ri­ty and re­new­able en­er­gy in the years ahead.

OAS Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Luis Al­ma­gro said Cari­com met chal­lenges and sur­vived and stayed unit­ed and that was a les­son for the re­gion and hemi­sphere—and a bless­ing.

Mex­i­co’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive spoke about the lit­i­ga­tion against US firearms man­u­fac­tur­ers and the re­cent meet­ing be­tween Cari­com and the US Vice Pres­i­dent. He said Mex­i­co was try­ing to find so­lu­tions.