The Twenty-Ninth Inter-Sessional Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) was held at Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on 26-27 February 2018. The President of Haiti, His Excellency Jovenel Moïse, Chaired the proceedings. Other Members of the Conference in attendance were Prime Minister of The Bahamas, Honourable Dr. Hubert Minnis; Prime Minister of Barbados, Rt. Honourable Freundel Stuart; Prime Minister of Grenada, Dr. the Rt. Honourable Keith Mitchell; Prime Minister of Jamaica, the Most Honourable Andrew Holness; Prime Minister of Saint Lucia, Honourable Allen Chastanet; Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr. the Honourable Ralph Gonsalves; and Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Dr. the Honourable Keith Rowley.
Antigua and Barbuda was represented by His Excellency Ambassador Colin Murdoch; Belize was represented by Senator the Honourable Michael Peyrefitte, Attorney General; Dominica was represented by the Honourable Francine Baron, Minister of Foreign Affairs; Guyana was represented by His Excellency Vice President Carl Greenidge; Montserrat was represented by the Honourable Delmaude Ryan, Deputy Premier and Minister of Education, Health, Youth Affairs, Sports and Social Services; St Kitts and Nevis was represented by the Honourable Vance Amory, Senior Minister; Suriname was represented by His Excellency Vice-President, Michael Ashwin Adhin.
Associate Members in attendance were British Virgin Islands represented by Dr. the Hon Kedrick Pickering, Deputy Premier; the Turks and Caicos Islands represented by Hon. Sean Astwood, Deputy Premier.
OPENING CEREMONY
The Opening Ceremony was addressed by the Secretary-General Ambassador Irwin LaRocque, the immediate past chairman Dr. the Rt. Honourable Keith Mitchell, Prime Minister of Grenada, and the Chairman, His Excellency Jovenel Moise, President of the Republic of Haiti. The Secretary-General noted the challenge associated with accessing concessional funding for CARICOM Member States. He pointed to how the challenge affected the countries who were affected by the Hurricanes last September and cited the particular circumstances of Associate Members such as the British Virgin Islands which have no recourse to concessional financing. Ambassador LaRocque noted the heavy toll of crime and violence on the society including the role of families in addressing this scourge. “The foundation of any strong society is the family, and it is within that circle that the battle against this scourge must begin,” he stated.
Prime Minister Mitchell brought into focus the importance of completing the measures to fully implement the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME), which was key to building economic resilience by ensuring that “we trade freely intra-regionally; particularly in agriculture products, which, for many of us, form the backbone of our exports.”
He also underlined the urgency of applying the approved Implementation Plan for the period 2017-2019 to accelerate the use of the measures under the regime.
The Prime Minister noted that the Community had been steadfastly putting the pillars in place to build a society that was viable and sustainable but pointed to significant challenges that had to be overcome, both internally and externally. In this regard, he cited the unilateral blacklisting of countries as non-cooperative tax jurisdictions as a major external challenge and the prohibitive cost of air travel regionally as a serious internal issue which must be addressed.
President Moise announced that he would be organising an international conference on the strengthening of the mechanisms of resilience to the effects of climate change and the management of natural disasters in the Caribbean.
This, he indicated, would be “an opportunity for the States, partners and international development actors to exchange ideas and make proposals on the best features of prevention and responses to natural disasters.”
The Chairman noted that one of the options to counteract the harmful consequences of these adverse events would be to establish or strengthen funding mechanisms for disaster risk.
“These will help countries affected quickly access, the next day even after disasters, funds for reconstruction through affordable and effective procedures rather than be paralyzed by the expectation of unlikely assistance which, in most cases, is too little, comes too late and, sometimes, never happens,” President Moise added.