Comment so far on the 33rd meeting of the Conference of Caricom Heads of Government has not suggested that there was much consideration of the effect, or effects, of the current economic crises plaguing countries in the region, in particular Jamaica, once, along with Trinidad & Tobago, considered a key lynchpin of the regional integration system. Secretary General Laroque took time to assure an apparently relieved opening ceremony audience (judging by its applause), that “Caricom is not in crisis.” But he did not indicate to the region’s listeners how that statement related to the more gloomy prognostications of the recent Landell Mills Report that seemed to assure us of the contrary.
Was the region not entitled to some indication from the Secretary General of actions taken in response, so far, to that report as it related specifically to his institution? Could he not have informed us as to what has happened to the initiative taken by then Caricom Chairperson, Prime Minister Tillman Thomas, at a special caucus in Guyana chaired by then President Jagdeo, on new strategies for advancing the integration process? And the heads having advised us on that occasion that the pursuit of the Single Economy should be put on “pause,” was their telling us that they had “assessed the status of implementation of the CSME and considered the action required for consolidation of the gains realized” all that we should be allowed to know? Could we not have been advised on what “specific elements of the Work Programme of the Single Economy” had been approved, so that we can make our own assessment of whether or not the pause has ended?
Further, is the statement in the post-conference communiqué that “Heads of Government received an update from the Secretary General regarding the organizational reforms put in place or proposed for the CARICOM Secretariat,” with their comment that “they underscored the importance of a comprehensive communications strategy as an integral part of the reform” sufficient meat for the region’s people to chew on?
The heads, in their review of the wider economic crisis affecting global players of significance to our economies, took time to tell us of “their conviction that regional integration has all the possibilities for supporting competitive production and production integration and that particular attention needed to be given to Caribbean convergence in our development strategy.” Was this not the original premise of the movement from Carifta to Caricom, and initially sought to be put in place by Dr Eric Williams’ proposal, in the mid-1970s, for the joint use of the region‘s bauxite, natural gas and potential hydroelectric resources in pursuit of a single or collective economy?
Why then was there not, in a communiqué referring to production integration, no reference to the Secretariat’s comprehensive study of 2010 on the creation of Caricom Regional Public Goods as instruments of economic convergence, particularly as the heads took note of “economic joint ventures” as discussed variously by Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana and proposed yet another regional task force on the matter? Are these not matters for the heads and minds of the general public, as distinct from the heads of the heads of government alone?
And as we refer to a Single Economy as a preoccupation of the heads, was it really necessary to wait until this conference for the Government of Barbados to grandiloquently announce that it was easing up the process of access to that country that has caused so much pain? Was the public relations opportunity so much more important than the early easing of the minds of Caribbean travellers?
All these questions really relate, of course, to the unseen elephant in the room which is the deep economic crisis afflicting the major players in the regional integration movement in varying degrees. The heads of government conference was preceded by a number of statements from various persons in Jamaica, political and otherwise, of the perceived constraints placed on that country’s ability to effectively compete in the region. And the source of many of these constraints was pointed in the direction of Trinidad & Tobago.
Yet it is no secret that the fundamental problems of the Jamaican economy have little to do with this, plaguing the country as they have been since the second half of the 1970s. The back and forth movement of Jamaica in the direction of the IMF, with little or no relief, has remained the central discussion point in that country since that time. It is, no doubt, with that in mind, and to squash any idea that the anti-Caricom statements emanating from her country have credence with the government, that Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller, strongly reiterated the country’s commitment to regional integration.
The statement, too, by the retiring Governor of the Trinidad & Tobago Central Bank that “we’ve had negative growth for three years …that’s our challenge: how do we get out of that slump,” has raised concerns in that country that outweigh the issue of Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar’s attempt to obtain support for her government’s half-in-half-out approach to the Caribbean Court of Justice. And of course there can now be little doubt that the coming general elections in Barbados will be fought on the opposition’s case that Prime Minister Freundel Stuart’s government has failed to find a way out of that country’s recession.
That general regional situation does not suggest a determined concentration on the issue of how regional integration can lead to what the heads referred to in their communiqué, as the role of “Caribbean convergence in our development strategy.” In that connection, there seems to be emerging a perception that the heads need help, as indicated in a recently held initiative – a “Caribbean Growth Forum,” sponsored by the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank along with the CDB and the universities. Yet this is curious, in the context of the heads‘ statement in their communiqué that the CDB needs to “structure its lending productions and processes to assist in the thrust for growth and development” – suggesting that Caribbean governments are not the determiners of that institution’s annually reviewed work programme.
A sense of indirection, and lack of policy depth, therefore seems to pervade this communiqué, at a time of concern for both national economic growth and a lack of in-depth collective focus on the next steps in regional integration. Prime Minister Kenny Anthony’s attempt to widen his colleagues’ focus towards the contemporary rearrangement of countries rankings and relationships in the global arena, as an inducement to defining new Caricom collective foreign policy responses, was obviously intended to give a new lift to perceptions of the challenges before us.
But in foreign policy-making, as in economic policy-making, the devil will be in the extent of cohesion that can be obtained among countries, some of whose foreign policies are determined by the search for the development funds that most crave at this time.
