The fol­low­ing is the full text of the re­marks made by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley as he ad­dressed the First Africa-CARI­COM Sum­mit, be­ing held vir­tu­al­ly to­day.

The theme of the Sum­mit is “Uni­ty Across Con­ti­nents and Oceans: Op­por­tu­ni­ties for Deep­en­ing In­te­gra­tion”.

In his re­marks, the PM thanked his African col­leagues for the re­cent de­liv­ery of COVID-19 vac­cines through the African Med­ical Sup­plies Plat­form.  He al­so point­ed to T&T’s de­sire to deep­en and strength­en trade and in­vest­ment ties with mem­bers of the African Union.

Dr Row­ley’s re­marks fol­low…

To­day’s high-lev­el en­gage­ment be­tween CARI­COM and Africa is a his­toric one. It is fit­ting that this First Sum­mit is be­ing held dur­ing the Unit­ed Na­tions’ In­ter­na­tion­al Decade for Peo­ple of African De­scent (1 Jan­u­ary 2015 to 31 De­cem­ber 2024).

I wish to thank His Ex­cel­len­cy Uhu­ru Keny­at­ta for the ster­ling ef­forts that have brought us to this junc­ture.  We must al­so ac­knowl­edge, apart from our cen­turies-old ties, the many African and Caribbean ar­chi­tects/cham­pi­ons of clos­er po­lit­i­cal, so­cial, eco­nom­ic and cul­tur­al link­ages be­tween and among our sov­er­eign states.

Africa has been CARI­COM’s in­valu­able part­ner in sev­er­al plat­forms such as at the UN, with­in the Group of 77 and, in our deal­ings with Eu­rope un­der the um­brel­la of what is now the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of African, Caribbean and Pa­cif­ic States (OACPS).  Unit­ed, we have known suc­cess. 

Clos­er col­lab­o­ra­tion will un­doubt­ed­ly be to our mu­tu­al ben­e­fit whether it be in pur­su­ing de­vel­op­ment fi­nance, re­source uti­liza­tion and debt sus­tain­abil­i­ty; max­i­miz­ing the green and blue economies; UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil Re­form with Africa and Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States (SIDS) ad­e­quate­ly po­si­tioned; or in the ex­is­ten­tial fight against cli­mate change, the ef­fects of which are wreak­ing hav­oc the world over and ex­ac­er­bat­ing our pe­cu­liar vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties.  We look for­ward there­fore to a mean­ing­ful out­come in Glas­gow at COP26 work­ing along­side our glob­al part­ners.

As Chair­man of CARI­COM dur­ing the first half of this year, I can at­test to the val­ue of clos­er col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween our re­gions. As COVID-19 rav­aged the so­cial and eco­nom­ic fab­ric of our na­tions, CARI­COM pri­or­i­tized the ear­ly sourc­ing of COVID-19 vac­cines to in­oc­u­late as many peo­ple as pos­si­ble be­fore ad­di­tion­al threats, such as new vari­ants, pre­sent­ed them­selves.  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 in the face of this glob­al health cri­sis.  Thank­ful­ly, last month, CARI­COM be­gan to re­ceive a sub­stan­tial al­lo­ca­tion of vac­cines un­der the African Med­ical Sup­plies Plat­form. Thank you, Africa. I am pleased to con­firm that my coun­try’s first tranche was re­ceived on 19th Au­gust 2021. 

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s link­ages to Africa run deep as marked by our bi­lat­er­al re­la­tion­ships, ob­serv­er sta­tus at the African Union (AU), 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—a tan­gi­ble man­i­fes­ta­tion of the com­mit­ment to en­gage Africa’s 6th Re­gion as re­flect­ed in your blue­print for de­vel­op­ment, Vi­sion 2063.

It’s been long in com­ing to this point to­day but it’s a con­tin­u­a­tion of that jour­ney out­lined by our own George Pad­more, C.L.R James, Dr Er­ic Eu­stace Williams and many oth­ers who an­tic­i­pat­ed that this mile­stone could be reached to strength­en us in an in­creas­ing­ly hos­tile world.

No­tably, our coun­try’s Vi­sion 2030, fi­nalised dur­ing my Ad­min­is­tra­tion’s first term in of­fice, high­lights deep­en­ing the re­la­tion­ship with Africa, among oth­er part­ners.

We have strong peo­ple-to-peo­ple ties and have wel­comed dis­tin­guished African lead­ers to our shores with the most re­cent, in 2019, be­ing His Ex­cel­len­cy Nana Ad­do Dankwa Aku­fo-Ad­do of Ghana.  I had the priv­i­lege of un­der­tak­ing an Of­fi­cial Vis­it to Ghana in 2016 and build­ing on the African En­er­gy Ini­tia­tive spear­head­ed by for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, shar­ing over 160 years of ex­pe­ri­ence in the en­er­gy sec­tor.

We wel­come the in­clu­sion on to­day’s agen­da of trade and in­vest­ment and high­light the sym­bi­ot­ic re­la­tion­ship that ex­ists with im­prov­ing trans­port con­nec­tiv­i­ty.  While dig­i­tal func­tion­al­i­ty is an im­per­a­tive with on­line plat­forms such as this one be­ing ubiq­ui­tous, in-per­son ex­changes will boost our trade, in­vest­ment and tourism ac­tiv­i­ties. We be­lieve that there is scope al­so for im­me­di­ate clos­er co­op­er­a­tion in the ar­eas of fi­nance and agri­cul­ture.

In the fi­nan­cial ser­vices sec­tor, some ad­vances al­ready have been made. Our in­dige­nous Re­pub­lic Bank Lim­it­ed ac­quired, in April 2018, the ma­jor­i­ty share­hold­ing of HFC Bank of Ghana Lim­it­ed as part of its aim to be a key play­er in Cor­po­rate Bank­ing in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. We look for­ward to con­tin­ued in­vest­ments in both di­rec­tions. We in CARI­COM are ac­tive­ly en­gaged in dis­cus­sions to es­tab­lish an IN­VEST­MENT FUND to un­lock and sus­tain our de­vel­op­ment pro­grams. We trust that Africa will in­vest with us as we are in­deli­bly im­print­ed with Africa in us.

There is al­so scope for col­lab­o­ra­tion in the cre­ative sec­tor which has been par­tic­u­lar­ly hard hit by the pan­dem­ic. Africa and the Caribbean have gift­ed the world with ex­cep­tion­al tal­ent be it in mu­sic, pub­lish­ing, film or fash­ion.  Let us strength­en the links be­tween our re­gions’ cre­ative in­dus­tries, a sec­tor de­scribed by the Unit­ed Na­tions Ed­u­ca­tion­al, Sci­en­tif­ic and Cul­tur­al Or­gan­i­sa­tion (UN­ESCO) as hav­ing the ca­pac­i­ty to be “dri­vers of cul­tur­al, eco­nom­ic and so­cial out­puts for sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment”.

We must al­so seek out ways to mend the so­cio-cul­tur­al dis­so­nance de­rived from the lega­cy of slav­ery. Ed­u­ca­tion­al pro­grammes, the de­vel­op­ment and pro­mo­tion of ge­neal­o­gy or her­itage trac­ing, may prove in­stru­men­tal in fill­ing the knowl­edge and fa­mil­ial gaps.

In clos­ing, I look for­ward to deep­en­ing our strate­gic part­ner­ship in the best in­ter­ests of our cit­i­zen­ry.

I wish to close by quot­ing the great Kwame Nkrumah, “I am not African be­cause I was born in Africa, but be­cause Africa was born in me”.

Thank you.