Just over a year ago, the World Food Programme (WFP) made the disturbing disclosure that an estimated 2.8 million people, or nearly 40 per cent of the population of the English-speaking Caribbean, had been dwelling in a condition of food insecurity. The numbers had reportedly increased by a staggering 1 million from a year earlier. If the disclosure was met with no profound sense of regional alarm it would have been an eye-opener if only because the term food insecurity is not one with which the region had, previously, been familiar. That said, the region’s immediate response included a collective vocal commitment by regional governments to mitigating measures, vocal undertakings being a favoured option of CARICOM governments) to reduce extra-regional food imports by 25% by 2025.
Mind you, it has to be said that there is still an element of fuzziness in the matter of a definitive road map towards that objective. Here, however, one imagines that there are roles for both the state and the private sector in terms of maximizing production of both agricultural produce and manufactured goods and that there are going to have to be strategic shifts in the consumer behaviour of those countries of the Caribbean who, historically, have cut their teeth on imported foods. From Caribbean governments, themselves, one would imagine that the customary lip service would be attended by a corresponding demonstrable commitment to leading the way, indications of which, admittedly, are reflected in the work that is being undertaken towards the creation of a Regional Food Terminal.
Here, the question that arises, however, is whether setting aside the creation of the Food Terminal (which, seemingly, is, in large measure, the responsibility of Barbados and Guyana) there exists a wider overarching framework within which the regional food security goal is being fashioned. In fairness, a brisk pace has been set insofar as the creation of the Terminal is concerned even though Caribbean people are unlikely not to bear in mind that the region has a reputation for huge gaps between the commencement and actualization of important initiatives. Here, the question arises again as to whether the pace of progress towards the rolling out of the Terminal matches the scale of the urgency in the matter of an appropriate response to what we are told is a food security crisis in parts of the region.
The specific question that arises here has to do with whether progress towards the completion of the Terminal is commensurate with what we understand to be the reported extent of the food security emergency. It has to be said that while Barbados and Guyana are at the head of the ‘charge’ in the matter of the Terminal it does not appear that the level of interest in the project in some countries in the region matches the reality of a food security deficiency. Nor, for that matter does it appear that there exists a structure that seeks to ensure that the region, as a whole, remains continually briefed on a time line for the Terminal to be up and running. One might ask whether the fact that the Terminal is being created against the backdrop of the WFP’s regional food security warning, whether that, in itself, is not more than sufficient justification for keeping us briefed on the issue.
Quite why it appears that the machinery of CARICOM does not appear to have been thrown into the mix specifically in terms of regularly updating the region on the pace of progress towards having the Terminal become operational, is a mystery. What is important in the context of what we are told is a ‘food emergency’ in some countries is that the CARICOM Secretariat be assigned to provide region-wide briefings regarding the pace of progress towards the facility becoming operational. Truth be told, blame for this omission, up to this time, must be laid at the feet of CARICOM Heads who often appear to be uncertain about some of the various utilitarian ways in which CARICOM ‘public service’ can serve the region. If one were to take the 25×2025 undertaking, for example, which is linked to the broader food sufficiency ambitions of the region, one would have imagined that by now the people of the region would have been afforded some kind of structured template embodying the specific initiatives to be undertaken within the confines of the 25×2025 initiative as well as a clear idea of the expectations of CARICOM member countries and of the people of the region, in terms of timetables for the launch of initiatives linked directly to the 25×2025 timetable.
No such plan that brings communities and countries together exists. Whether the Heads of Government of the region are aware of it or not, there exists something of a disconnect (and, frequently, it appears to be a considerable one) between governments and governed in the region in terms of an information flow that keeps the people of the region properly briefed on critical regional currents on issues like climate change and food security in circumstances where there are existing institutions and mechanisms that are designed to enable that critical two-way flow of information. This, in large measure, has always been the case and up to this time there does not appear to be any real indication of a movement – not a gradual shift but a profound movement – towards real change in the flow of information between governments. That has to end if the notion of a Caribbean Community with an overarching responsibility to the people of the region, as a whole, is to be taken seriously.
