Over the week­end in Bridgetown, Bar­ba­dos, the Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion of Na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tees (CANOC) held its 21st Gen­er­al As­sem­bly and its 10th an­nu­al Work­shop.

CANOC is al­so cel­e­brat­ing its 20th an­niver­sary. Pri­or to the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly on Sun­day and Work­shop, the day be­fore, there was a Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Work­shop held from Oc­to­ber 4-5 – a col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC) and CANOC host­ed by the Bar­ba­dos Olympic As­so­ci­a­tion (BOA).

This work­shop en­tailed the “Sus­tain­abil­i­ty, Sport for Na­ture, Sports for Cli­mate Change” ac­tion frame­work.

Caribbean Olympic sports lead­ers and del­e­gates heard pre­sen­ta­tions from Julie Duf­fus, the IOC Sus­tain­abil­i­ty man­ag­er, Noemie Metais, Youth, Ed­u­ca­tion and Ad­vo­ca­cy Of­fi­cer, Unit­ed Na­tions En­vi­ron­ment Pro­gramme (UN­EP), who pro­vid­ed an overview of her or­gan­i­sa­tion’s work while Hy­acinth Arm­strong-Vaughn, Pro­tect­ed Ar­eas Of­fi­cer at the In­ter­na­tion­al Union for the Con­ser­va­tion of Na­ture (IUCN), shared in­valu­able in­for­ma­tion on the state of bio­di­ver­si­ty in the Caribbean.

It was a very in­ter­est­ing week.

The dis­cus­sions were thought-pro­vok­ing and might I add frank and hon­est. CANOC’s brave and bold next steps will set the or­gan­i­sa­tion on the right path.

In ad­dress­ing the chal­lenges and op­por­tu­ni­ties pre­sent­ed in the con­tem­po­rary en­vi­ron­ment, the CANOC ex­ec­u­tive led by its cur­rent pres­i­dent Kei­th Joseph is tak­ing it to the next lev­el. CANOC as it con­tin­ues the jour­ney in­to the fu­ture is em­brac­ing the changed re­al­i­ties. The or­gan­i­sa­tion is har­ness­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ties and fac­ing them in a changed world.

Sport lead­ers, in par­tic­u­lar, those from vul­ner­a­ble small is­land states are in a ver­i­ta­ble war for sur­vival. Sport is un­der siege from forces in­clud­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal, that threat­en the very ex­is­tence of sport as we know it to be. There are those, who have made the de­ci­sion, that they will not change.

Set­ting the agen­da. Set­ting the stage.

CANOC over the week­end took some im­por­tant and far-reach­ing de­ci­sions that will have sig­nif­i­cant con­se­quences. CANOC agreed to take the lead with­in the re­gion on “Sport for Cli­mate Change” and “Sport for Na­ture” and to lead the pack on sus­tain­abil­i­ty and sport and hu­man rights. The land­mark sign­ing of a co­op­er­a­tion agree­ment with the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), a sign­ing that was wit­nessed by the Ho­n­ourable Charles Grif­fith, Bar­ba­dos Min­is­ter of Youth, Sports and Com­mu­ni­ty Em­pow­er­ment, Dr Ak­shai Mans­ingh, Dean of the Fac­ul­ty of Sport signed for UWI with pres­i­dent Joseph do­ing the need­ful for CANOC.

This co­op­er­a­tion agree­ment with UWI and CANOC will change the face and land­scape of the Olympic and Com­mon­wealth sports move­ment. It’s a game-chang­er.

Ear­li­er this year, CANOC re­ceived an in­vi­ta­tion to at­tend the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (WHO) Small Is­lands De­vel­op­ing States (SIDS) high-lev­el tech­ni­cal meet­ing on the pre­ven­tion of Non-Com­mu­ni­ca­ble Dis­eases (NCDs) and Men­tal Health. An im­por­tant em­brace of CANOC’s lead­er­ship po­si­tion. Just as Cari­com and the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank do in their re­spec­tive ar­eas of ex­per­tise. CANOC is em­brac­ing the idea that it must take the lead­er­ship man­tle for chart­ing a new vi­sion for the role of the Olympic and Com­mon­wealth sport move­ment, and the sport in­dus­try in the Caribbean.

The lead­er­ship of CANOC had sev­er­al meet­ings in re­spect of col­lab­o­ra­tions and part­ner­ships. Ar­eas of par­tic­u­lar fo­cus were a sports pol­i­cy map­ping pro­gramme and the es­tab­lish­ment of a CANOC mon­i­tor­ing, eval­u­a­tion and learn­ing strat­e­gy and sys­tem.

Get­ting to 20 years is no easy feat but as CANOC heads in­to the next phase of its his­to­ry, the or­gan­i­sa­tion is full of con­fi­dence that it’s on a pos­i­tive tra­jec­to­ry of re­spect, rel­e­vance and cred­i­bil­i­ty with a loud­er and more in­flu­en­tial voice.

Ed­i­tor’s Note: The views ex­pressed by the writer aren’t nec­es­sar­i­ly those of any or­gan­i­sa­tion that he may be as­so­ci­at­ed with.