There is nothing wrong with the fact that a deliberate effort appears to have been made to create a kind of ‘feel good’ atmosphere across the three days during which attendees, particularly Caribbean Heads, gathered here for last week’s ‘25 x 2025’ forum. Part of the reason for the forum, it seemed was to assess the region’s chances of realising the target embedded in its theme.
That, however, cannot be determined this early. We must see, first, the extent to which the undertakings given at the forum will, with the requisite timeliness, be transformed into some kind of concrete action. As this newspaper has already said, precedent dictates that we do not read too much into the undertakings and declarations that emerged from the forum itself. After all, we cannot be sufficiently naïve as not to take account of the worrying handed-down propensity, through generations of Caribbean leadership, to be unable to form anything of substance. To a great extent, Caribbean politicians often demonstrate an insatiable appetite for theatre, living in the moment and seemingly not bothering too much about the fulfillment of undertakings. Here, it is altogether important to remind that the fact that we are beginning, again, down the road of addressing the issue of regional food security, is the result of earlier failures that occurred on the watch of some politicians who still hold political office in the region.
Two points should be made at this juncture. First, that our previous abortive attempts to address this issue must not give cause for throwing in the towel. Secondly, it is altogether fair to see where the leadership of President Irfaan Ali takes us on this issue given only the fact that Guyana is probably in a better position than it has ever been previously to lead the regional food security ‘charge’ and that, at least on the face of it, the President, over the period of the 25 x 2025 event, demonstrated an ‘energy’ that was encouraging. He has at least made a case for being given a chance to try.
It would, of course, be a mistake for him to live in ‘the moment’ which the forum provided. One expects, for example, that the President will be aware that in a matter that has implications for the well-being of the region, as a whole, rousing rhetoric cannot, automatically, be transformed into results. Setting aside the fact that Guyana now boasts a more favourable economic climate that should go a long way towards allowing for the provision of effective leadership in the matter of the critical regional food security goal, its ability to mobilise the national, local, and regional resources, and crucially, to muster the requisite collective will is probably likely to be its biggest challenge.
Precedent suggests that in matters of this kind, once the commitments are made we discover, all too frequently, that we lack the institutional capacity to accomplish set goals. It is either that, or else, we tend, often after an initial spurt of effort, to either suffer from institutional ‘burnout’, or else we become distracted with some ‘urgent’ domestic pursuit considered sufficiently important to set aside whatever else might be on our plates at that time.
There was never a time in the recent history of the Caribbean when it was more seriously felt that we could accomplish the food security goals that we have set ourselves. Given the facility of precedent that is at our disposal, it ought to be possible, at a relatively early stage to determine whether or not, this time around, it will be different.
