Hope­ful­ly, the pre­lim­i­nary dis­cus­sions ear­li­er this month be­tween Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Dr Amery Browne and the new Ja­maican High Com­mis­sion­er to this coun­try, Her Ex­cel­len­cy Na­tal­ie Camp­bell-Ro­driques, were more than an ex­change of pleas­antries.

There is a need for greater co-op­er­a­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion in ath­let­ics and com­mu­ni­ty youth de­vel­op­ment to un­earth and tap in­to the vast po­ten­tial that re­sides not on­ly with­in our two na­tions, but the wider Caribbean.

The oc­ca­sion for those ini­tial talks was the of­fi­cial pre­sen­ta­tion of cre­den­tials by High Com­mis­sion­er Camp­bell-Ro­driques, who is start­ing her tour of du­ty in T&T at a crit­i­cal time for the two coun­tries.

It was en­cour­ag­ing to read, in the brief me­dia re­lease on the meet­ing is­sued by the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, that Dr Browne and High Com­mis­sion­er Camp­bell-Ro­driques are com­mit­ted to work­ing to­geth­er to im­prove T&T-Ja­maica re­la­tions, which had gone through some highs and lows, par­tic­u­lar in terms of trade, in re­cent years.

Ex­pec­ta­tions have been aroused by their agree­ment to “co-op­er­ate on ar­eas of mu­tu­al in­ter­est with­in re­gion­al and mul­ti­lat­er­al bod­ies”, but more so by Her Ex­cel­len­cy’s in­ter­est in col­lab­o­ra­tion in the ar­eas of tex­tiles, ath­let­ics, and com­mu­ni­ty youth de­vel­op­ment.

The lat­ter two, in par­tic­u­lar, hold sig­nif­i­cant de­vel­op­ment po­ten­tial for the two coun­tries.

In terms of ath­let­ics, T&T has a lot to learn from Ja­maica, a Caribbean na­tion with which we share much in com­mon.

Ja­maica has pro­duced not on­ly the great­est sprint­er of all time, Us­ain Bolt, but many oth­ers who have dom­i­nat­ed the track on the world stage, in­clud­ing Shelly-Ann Fras­er-Pryce, Elaine Thomp­son-Heer­ah, Yohan Blake, Veron­i­ca Camp­bell-Brown and many oth­er leg­ends.

T&T has al­so demon­strat­ed some prowess in track and field but still has not man­aged to ful­ly har­ness that sport­ing po­ten­tial in terms of train­ing and de­vel­op­ment.

But this isn’t on­ly about win­ning medals and earn­ing glob­al brag­ging rights in high­ly com­pet­i­tive sport­ing dis­ci­plines, but es­tab­lish­ing clear paths to suc­cess for youth pop­u­la­tions that oth­er­wise face dif­fi­cult so­cial and eco­nom­ic hur­dles that can of­ten lead them in the wrong di­rec­tions.

Par­tic­u­lar­ly at this junc­ture, when crime and vi­o­lence is threat­en­ing dan­ger­ous lev­els of in­sta­bil­i­ty, not on­ly for T&T and Ja­maica, but most Cari­com mem­ber states, tar­get­ed bi­lat­er­al ini­tia­tives can make all the dif­fer­ence.

Our na­tions, cur­rent­ly bat­tling with high homi­cide rates and crime, need to push past the is­sues that di­vide us and work to­geth­er against com­mon transna­tion­al per­ils fac­ing our youth pop­u­la­tions.

Co-op­er­a­tion on com­mu­ni­ty youth de­vel­op­ment can yield div­i­dends, the most crit­i­cal of which is stem­ming the blood­shed that dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly af­fects young men.

For T&T, which holds the sixth high­est crime rate in the world and for Ja­maica, which might not be too far off that rank­ing, the ideas ex­changed be­tween Dr Browne and High Com­mis­sion­er Camp­bell-Ro­driques need to be tak­en sev­er­al steps fur­ther.

Too of­ten in the past, the na­tions of the Caribbean have set­tled on the fool­hardy op­tion of go­ing it alone, over­look­ing the col­lec­tive strength and vast re­gion­al po­ten­tial that could have put us in a stronger po­si­tion on the glob­al stage.

There have been sig­nals re­cent­ly, par­tic­u­lar­ly at the lev­el of Cari­com, that Caribbean na­tions are fi­nal­ly ready to ac­knowl­edge those past er­rors and move past them.

There are op­por­tu­ni­ties now for T&T and Ja­maica to move in that di­rec­tion.