Once up­on a time, all of us was in chains - Kendrick Lamar, song “Not Like Us”.

Giv­en the chal­lenges fac­ing con­tem­po­rary Caribbean so­ci­ety - sport in the re­gion is in dan­ger of be­ing left be­hind and left out if sports lead­ers don’t get their act and house in or­der de­clared Dr Mo­hamed Ir­faan Ali, Pres­i­dent of the Co-op­er­a­tive Re­pub­lic of Guyana as he called on Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion of Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees (CANOC) to take the lead an act with a sense of ur­gency and en­gage re­gion­al gov­ern­ments and Cari­com as a mat­ter of pri­or­i­ty.

Stop think­ing small! Be Bold! Think Big! Be In­no­v­a­tive! Ad­vo­cate and lob­by for the pow­er of sport to dri­ve holis­tic na­tion­al and re­gion­al de­vel­op­ment in­clud­ing eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment–Dr Mo­hamed Ir­faan Ali.

The CANOC ex­ec­u­tive held a strate­gic plan­ning re­treat in George­town, Guyana last Fri­day and Sat­ur­day. It was an in­tense two days of meet­ings and dis­cus­sions that had sig­nif­i­cant im­pli­ca­tions for the present and fu­ture of the Caribbean Olympic move­ment.

What made the two days in­valu­able is the fact that, un­like the ma­jor­i­ty of Olympic move­ment meet­ings, the en­tire agen­da fo­cused on Caribbean is­sues and con­cerns, prob­lems, and so­lu­tions. The fo­cus was on co­op­er­a­tion, co­or­di­na­tion, and col­lab­o­ra­tion, not sub­or­di­na­tion. Un­like IOC (In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee), Pan Am Sports and oth­er glob­al sport meet­ings where the lack of gen­uine in­ter­est in is­sues and mat­ters that im­pact the Caribbean is a re­al­i­ty.

In Guyana, CANOC had two sig­nif­i­cant meet­ings - one with Dr Ali that was ex­ceed­ing­ly pro­gres­sive, and the oth­er at the Cari­com Sec­re­tari­at with Dr Wen­dell Samuel - se­nior Eco­nom­ic Ad­vi­sor to the Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al and Act­ing As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Di­rec­torate of Eco­nom­ic In­te­gra­tion, In­no­va­tion and De­vel­op­ment, David Pren­der­gast, Di­rec­tor, Eco­nom­ic In­te­gra­tion, In­no­va­tion and De­vel­op­ment, Davion Leslie, Pro­gramme Man­ag­er, Hu­man Re­source De­vel­op­ment, Di­rec­torate for Hu­man and So­cial De­vel­op­ment, Sher­win Toyne-Steven­son Pro­gramme Man­ag­er; Crime and Se­cu­ri­ty Di­rec­torate for a Hu­man and So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Tim­o­thy Odle, Deputy Pro­gramme Man­ag­er Ser­vices Sec­tor De­vel­op­ment Di­rec­torate for Eco­nom­ic In­te­gra­tion, In­no­va­tion and De­vel­op­ment.

The dis­cus­sions fo­cused on strength­en­ing re­gion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion, ad­vanc­ing sus­tain­able sports ini­tia­tives, and the role that sport can play in holis­tic na­tion­al and re­gion­al de­vel­op­ment.

CANOC pres­i­dent Kei­th Joseph as­sert­ed dur­ing the two days that the Guyana Olympic move­ment has an im­por­tant role to play in the de­vel­op­ment of the broad­er Caribbean Olympic move­ment and Caribbean sports move­ment.

Joseph al­so said that CANOC’s in­ter­est is sport for de­vel­op­ment and not­ed Pres­i­dent Dr Ali’s com­mit­ment to the en­gage­ment of sports peo­ple (and) sports or­gan­i­sa­tions as a crit­i­cal mech­a­nism for the de­vel­op­ment of Guyanese so­ci­ety, and ul­ti­mate­ly, for the de­vel­op­ment of Caribbean so­ci­ety.

He (Joseph) ex­pressed to the Guyana Olympic As­so­ci­a­tion (GOA) and me­dia that he was hap­py that the GOA and sport in Guyana have the sup­port of the cur­rent leader of the gov­ern­ment, and fur­ther not­ed Dr Ali’s com­mit­ment to work with CANOC to broad­en CANOC’s en­gage­ment at the lev­el of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com).

What came across crys­tal clear is the cur­rent Guyana pres­i­dent’s de­ter­mi­na­tion that sport and cul­ture are in­te­gral to Guyana’s na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment strate­gic plan. More sig­nif­i­cant is his ap­pre­ci­a­tion that in the mod­ern world - sport is a busi­ness with the po­ten­tial to fa­cil­i­tate sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment.

Guyana’s po­ten­tial to be­come the Hub for sus­tain­able Cul­ture, sport, and en­ter­tain­ment first­ly in the Caribbean and the Amer­i­c­as is tremen­dous.

In 2015, Exxon Mo­bil dis­cov­ered 11 bil­lion bar­rels of oil off the coast of Guyana.