Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Jamaica PM: CARICOM at risk

By Gerald J La Touche JP

The Prime Minister of Jamaica, Bruce Golding, is on to something in his caution, “that the existence of CARICOM, the only organisation dedicated to the economic interests of Caribbean countries, was at risk.”
bruce golding
Bruce Golding the Jamaica Prime Minister has warned that CARICOM is at risk.


When he goes on to say, "There are a number of things that are happening now that are destabilising and threatening the existence of CARICOM," and that, "The political integration that is being pursued by Trinidad and a number of countries in the Eastern Caribbean may very well be commendable, but I believe that it is at the detriment to the deepening and strengthening of CARICOM," this is a clear indication that something is already very wrong.

Warning against the support of a rival organisation, Golding said: "I believe that the membership of ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas), which now engages three CARICOM countries, is going to have a destabilising effect on CARICOM. It is going to distract, it is going to divert and it is something that I believe that CARICOM leaders need to examine."

What is shocking about this statement is the fact that the Prime Minister saw it fit to raise these views at a public function and not in a private meeting of or with fellow CARICOM leaders. The PM can sense, like so many of us Caribbeanists, that the Caribbean agenda is going askew. This is a desperate and commendable plea by the Jamaican Prime Minister to his colleagues in CARICOM that the Caribbean ship, if not sinking, is at the very least sailing in the wrong direction. Or is it trying to sail in too many directions all at once!

In his conclusion the Prime Minister shared his most foreboding observation when he said, “I do not believe that any of us can believe that we are going to be better off trying to swim in this Caribbean sea on our own, but it is time for us to stop playing games, for us to stop mouthing integration and professing our commitment to this process when the pragmatic demonstration of that commitment is so often not being brought to the fore."

And so I too concur with all that PM Golding had to say. As a post-grad student of International Relations – Globalisation and Governance, and as someone who has worked at the EU Regional level for the past six years, I have found it extremely difficult to understand any linkages or alignment between the myriad of regional-integration initiatives being pursued by the Caribbean region at this given time. Today the main drivers of Caribbean regional-integration appear to be CARICOM, OECS, OECS+T&T, CSME and ALBA.

My every commentary for BBC Caribbean or for any other Caribbean News network has highlighted the confusion for the Caribbean citizenry to make sense of all of these different initiatives. As a senior policy person I find this totally confusing and disconnected. How then is the average Caribbean citizen supposed to make sense of these?

The obvious danger with all these different initiatives is not just the simple fact that they all lead down different paths and not towards a shared common goal or objective, but it is the fact that finite regional resources are having to be spread too thinly in servicing all these initiatives.

Therefore no one initiative receives enough concentrated resource and focus to truly deliver real integration for the Caribbean. Because of the spread between and across CARICOM, OECS, OECS+T&T, CSME and ALBA, not enough time and energy are available to truly deepen any one of these to achieve real integration.

We are therefore left with a Caribbean region besieged with a plethora of good regional-integration intentions but no real substance and leadership to allow for true integration. Policy statements launching new regional initiatives coupled with haphazard attempts at a fragmented delivery does not make up for real regional-integration strategy/policy.

I should know because I have been the Regional Economic Strategy Manager at a UK Regional Development Agency for the past six years - now the Senior Planning and Performance Advisor, covering a region of 5.2 million people with a 5 year budget of £2.2billion.

The above article was written with extracts and quotes from Jamaican Observer - Wednesday, June 10, 2009.


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Comments:
In a few days time, Caribbean Heads of Government will meet in Georgetown, Guyana. There they will try to address an ever-increasing list of unresolved issues.

The areas of divergence are legion. They range from the failure to progress Caricom’s relationship with the Dominican Republic, through something close to warfare over the freedom of movement and migration, to the continuing absence of region-wide financial regulation. It encompasses the failure of Governments to meet Caribbean Single Market and Economy deadlines, the continuing absence of any regional response to the year old global economic crisis, disagreement on how to implement or move forwards trade negotiations, and inaction on support for a tourism industry in crisis.

Disturbingly, the absence of any sense of long-term cohesion emerging from these meetings suggests that a moment will come soon when public trust in the integration process erodes and the new inter and extra-relationships that many governments are now establishing will marginalise Caricom. It is therefore scarcely surprising if Caribbean people at all levels have begun to wonder about the value of these expensive exercises and whether a fit for purpose twenty-first century Caricom can be created.

Recently Douglas Orane, the Chairman of Grace Kennedy, one of the region’s most successful regional and transnational companies, suggested there might be lessons for Caricom in the way the private sector think about management and efficiency.

Addressing a the Caribbean Association of Industry and Commerce annual dinner, Mr Orane expressed a ‘sense of deep disquiet’ that forces were causing the vision of an integrated region to be replaced by national solutions involving players outside the region and an ‘every country for itself’ approach.

His response characteristically was both thoughtful and direct. The Caribbean‘s decision making machinery within CARICOM was, he said, outdated and rooted in the thinking of the mid 20th century.

Mr Orane also suggested other practical changes. There was the need to develop better information to assess situations. CARICOM, he said, does not have the resources to gather and analyse data …. ‘so, many of our decisions are made based on anecdotal evidence’. He noted that the Caribbean Single market and Economy was largely immobilized by having missed most of its deadlines for implementation and was now being overtaken by events. There was a need too to move beyond traditional xenophobia if governments were to create economic development and an improving the standard of living for all Caribbean people.

It is becoming ever clearer that the economic crisis the region now finds itself in will no longer allow Heads to paper over the chasms that now separate their differences. If as a consequence nations are not prepared to accept the regional integration process can only work through the ceding of some aspects of sovereignty, they will forever find reasons to make the Caribbean Single Market and Economy unworkable in practice and regionalism unviable.

If this, Caricom’s thirtieth summit, fails to result in decisions that are implemented, it will be hard to avoid the sad conclusion that the age of pan-Caribbean regional integration is passing.

David Jessop is the Director of the Caribbean Council and can be contacted at [email protected]
Previous columns can be found at www.caribbean-council.org
June 26th, 2009
 

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