Re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sues are high on the agen­da as the U.S. South­ern Com­mand (SOUTH­COM) and the Bar­ba­dos De­fence Force co-host the Caribbean Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Con­fer­ence (CANSEC), be­tween April 5th and 7th, in Bridgetown, Bar­ba­dos.

Trinidad and To­ba­go will par­tic­i­pate in the con­fer­ence.

An of­fi­cial state­ment from the Bar­ba­dos De­fence Force notes the theme for this year’s con­fer­ence is: “Multi­na­tion­al Co­op­er­a­tion In A Chang­ing Op­er­a­tional En­vi­ron­ment. 

The CANSEC 22’s open­ing cer­e­mo­ny is sched­uled for Wednes­day April 6th, and it can be viewed on the Bar­ba­dos Gov­ern­ment In­for­ma­tion Ser­vice YouTube page https://www.youtube.com/c/PMO­Bar­ba­dos/videos, with a di­rect link from the prime min­is­ter’s web page https://pmo.gov.bb/

Fea­ture speak­ers in­clude U.S. Deputy As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary of De­fense for the West­ern Hemi­sphere, Daniel Er­ick­son; SOUTH­COM Com­man­der, U.S. Army Gen. Lau­ra Richard­son; Prime Min­is­ter of Bar­ba­dos, Mia Mot­t­ley SC MP; and Bar­ba­dos De­fence Force Chief of Staff, Com­modore Erring­ton Shur­land.

“Now in its 24th year, the con­fer­ence has a strong his­to­ry of pro­mot­ing re­gion­al and hemi­spher­ic se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion in the Caribbean basin, as well as oth­er im­por­tant glob­al net­works of co­op­er­a­tion,” the re­lease from the Bar­ba­dos De­fence Force ex­plains.

“CANSEC 22 aims to pro­mote re­gion­al and hemi­spher­ic se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion through ex­pand­ing net­works and to build en­dur­ing part­ner­ships among mil­i­tary, in­dus­try and gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials,” the re­lease added.

A hy­brid ap­proach is be­ing adopt­ed with re­gard to stag­ing the con­fer­ence.  The fo­cus will be on:

●   Re­gion­al Se­cu­ri­ty. Par­tic­i­pants will dis­cuss and iden­ti­fy best prac­tices and op­por­tu­ni­ties in re­gion­al co­or­di­na­tion to counter transna­tion­al threats im­pact­ing the Blue Econ­o­my; counter-ter­ror­ism ini­tia­tives; and counter-il­lic­it flows op­er­a­tions.

●   Co­or­di­na­tion for re­gion­al Hu­man­i­tar­i­an As­sis­tance/Dis­as­ter Re­lief (HA/DR), with dis­cus­sions fo­cussing on es­tab­lished pro­ce­dures or process­es for re­spond­ing to a HADR sce­nario across the re­gion and lessons from past HADR events.

Par­tic­i­pat­ing coun­tries in­clude An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Ba­hamas, Bar­ba­dos, Be­lize, Do­mini­ca, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Grena­da, Guyana, Haiti, Ja­maica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lu­cia, St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines, Suri­name, Trinidad and To­ba­go, and the Unit­ed States. 

Cana­da, France, King­dom of the Nether­lands, Mex­i­co, and the Unit­ed King­dom al­so have been in­vit­ed to par­tic­i­pate in the con­fer­ence.

Sev­er­al re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies al­so will be in at­ten­dance: Caribbean Dis­as­ter Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (CDE­MA), Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty’s Im­ple­ment­ing Agency for Crime and Se­cu­ri­ty (CARI­COM IM­PACS), Re­gion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sys­tem (East­ern Caribbean), and the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­fense Board (Or­ga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­can States).

Ac­cord­ing to the Bar­ba­dos De­fence Force, Bar­ba­dos last host­ed the con­fer­ence in 2004.  The con­fer­ence it­self an­nu­al­ly brings to­geth­er 150 -180 se­nior de­fence and se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials with in­dus­try rep­re­sen­ta­tives to se­cu­ri­ty mat­ters. The con­fer­ence in­cludes ses­sions deal­ing with is­sues per­ti­nent to hemi­spher­ic se­cu­ri­ty, as well as ses­sions and pan­el dis­cus­sions that as­sess re­gion-spe­cif­ic and na­tion­al case stud­ies.