Fisheries Department holds consultation – for setting up Conservation Fund for MPA

MORE than 40 persons representing a wide cross-section of stakeholders who will benefit from the National Conservation Fund recently participated in a consultation aimed at getting their comments and reaction to draft legislations for setting up the Grenada National Conservation Trust Fund.

Grenada is implementing a regional project entitled “The Sustainable Financing and Management of the Eastern Caribbean Marine Ecosystem project”, which began in 2012. The Fisheries Division of the Ministry of Agriculture, Lands, Forestry, Fisheries and Environment is the National Implementing Entity (NIE) for the project and Grenada received a grant from the Global Environment Facility (GEF), German Development Bank (KfW) and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) to the amount of 4.3 million US dollars, which capitalised the Caribbean Biodiversity Fund (CBF).

Some of the participants at the Marine
Protection Areas (MPA) consultation.

National Marine Protected Areas Co-ordinator, Roland Baldeo, said that as a result of the project, the Grenada National Conservation Trust Fund will be set up through parliamentary legislation by the Grenada Government for which the ‘interest’ from the CBF will be channelled.

“Therefore, the consultation provided an opportunity for stakeholders who will be directly affected and/or benefit from the Fund to give feedback, which is very necessary as we prepare to take it through the final stage before it becomes legislation,” he said.

Mr. Baldeo explains that beginning from early 2014, Grenada will be able to draw down an amount of EC$500 000 annually, which would be used to support Marine Protection Areas (MPA) including support for interventions in coastal areas and watersheds, which impact heavily on our reefs and the marine environment.

“And it’s through that Fund the money will be channelled, so we have to get it right and create a framework which will have the input of all involved,” he said.

The workshop was opened by Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Lands, Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, Mrs. Bernadette Sylvester Lendore. In her remarks, she reiterated the Ministry’s continuing support towards the establishment and management of Marine Protected Areas nationally.

She also informed stakeholders that Grenada will soon be receiving critical support for strengthening and improving the management of an existing MPA under a new project funded by the German Ministry of Economic Development and Co-operation, in collaboration with the Caribbean Environment Health Institute.

Chief Fisheries Officer, Mr. Justin Rennie, outlined the importance of the fishing industry to the economic development of Grenada to the participants, while Mr. Baldeo presented an overview of the national MPA programme and the vision for governance of MPA, where communities and stakeholders will be empowered under a co-management approach. There were also presentations by Mr. Robbie Bovino of The Nature Conservancy and Mr. Dan Bailey of the UK legal firm Ropes and Grey about
the legal framework.

There are presently three marine protected areas established in Grenada – the Moliniere/Beausejour MPA, the Sandy Island/Oyster Bed MPA in Carriacou and the Woburn/Clarks Court Bay MPA.

Consultations will begin shortly for establishing the Grand Anse fathom reefs as an MPA, while additional priority areas are being considered for protection. They include Levera, South Coast of Grenada, and White Island off Carriacou.

All these projects are expected to benefit from “The Sustainable Financing and Management of the Eastern Caribbean Marine Ecosystem project”, through the Conservation Fund.

Grand Anse Beach voted most favourite among About.com readers

THE more than 13 000 readers who voted in the 2013 About.com survey decided that Grand Anse Beach be voted the winner for “Favourite Beach” in the 2013 About.com Readers’ Choice Awards.

For the second straight year, About Caribbean Travel readers have voted Curacao their favourite Caribbean destination in the annual Readers’ Choice Awards, while the Four Seasons Resort in Nevis was named favourite hotel and the Sandals Grande Riviera Beach & Villa Golf Resort in Ocho Rios, Jamaica was honoured as favourite Caribbean all-inclusive resort.

Other 2013 winners include:

• Favourite Cruise Line: Island Windjammers (another repeat winner!).

• Favourite Attraction: Xel-Ha, Riviera Maya, Mexico.

• Favourite Rum: Brinley Gold Shipwreck Rum from St. Kitts.

• Favourite Beach Bar: Paradise Moon Bar and Restaurant in Bonaire.

About.com is considered a top web property and is owned by the prestigious NY Times Company. It has a large online readership of approximately 40.352 million unique monthly viewers supplemented by its weekly e-newsletter subscribers. (LS)

Second chance for youth to further education

At-risk youth are being given  another chance to further their education, develop their skills and achieve regionally-acknowledged certification.

This is thanks to the Strengthening Second Chance Education Programme (Second Chance), launched by the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) in association with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

The speakers at the Second Chance Education Programme launch
were (from left to right) Director of Training, BVTB, Henderson Thompson;
US Ambassador to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, Dr. Larry Palmer;
Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and
Innovation, Senator Harcourt Husbands; and Registrar at CXC, Dr. Didacus Jules.

According to Registrar at CXC Dr. Didacus Jules, the initiative gives participants a second chance and should not be considered an inferior education, for the courses being offered and the participating institutions will be exemplary.

The programme is an opportunity for youth between the ages of 16 and 35 years old across nine Caribbean territories to attain CXC’s Caribbean Vocational Qualification (CVQ) levels one and two and the Caribbean Certificate of Secondary Level Competence (CCSLC).

Barbados' Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Education,
Science, Technology and Innovation, Senator Harcourt Husbands,
spoke of the benefits of Second Chance to Barbados and the region.

Lauding the programme and pleased with the response made by local and regional Second Chance institutions, Dr. Jules said, “Access to the CVQs and to the CCSLC will provide a solid foundation of competencies to enable young people to move from wherever they are to wherever they dream to go.”

Endorsing the significance of such an initiative, US Ambassador to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, Dr. Larry Palmer, said: “This three-year, US$4.2 million programme will strengthen the providers of second chance opportunities in Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, and will provide a path for continued education recognised by the CXC and portable across the Caribbean.”

Palmer further commended CXC, saying that the role of CXC and its regionally recognised certification status are critical.

“The renewed US-CXC partnership supports a Caribbean that is better equipped to support its people locally and to compete internationally. This Second Chance Programme is holistic, supporting the development of market skills while also boosting participants’ self-esteem and providing life skills,” he said.

A section of the audience.

According to CXC, the aim of the programme is to assist in the development of valuable life skills and lead to portable certification, but also to advance training or retraining for the world of work and to act as a continuing education platform for future development.

The Second Chance programme is expected to primarily encourage at-risk youth participants including, but not limited to, those who experienced poor life outcomes such as school failure, teenage parenthood, economic dependency, poor school performance, male marginalisation, physical disabilities, unemployment and underemployment. The programme will be implemented in Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, and Barbados. (KG)

CEDA sets up private sector advisory group

CARIBBEAN Export Development Agency (CEDA) is seeking to bring together a regional private sector advisory group that can effectively represent and communicate the concerns of private sector entities in the Caribbean.

Word of this came from that agency’s Executive Director Pamela Coke-Hamilton, as she lamented the alarming disappearance of many such bodies over the last decade. She was at the time addressing delegates attending the Caribbean Exporters’ Colloquium which took place in Barbados last week. Coke-Hamilton said that the lack of strong private sector advocacy left a gaping hole in the Caribbean’s negotiation framework.

The Advisory group which they were putting in place would have “a systemic objective of hearing directly from the private sector of the region, what the key challenges affecting export capacity and marketing penetration were”, the Executive Director reported.

“This conversation will help to create a more targeted approach to enabling the private sector to increase market penetration, particularly under the [EU-CARIFORUM Economic Partnership Agreement].”

Coke-Hamilton said that there was little doubt that opportunities for the region’s exporters were abundant. The challenge was how to improve the tools and capacity of the region’s private sector, identify its area of focus, find out the priority areas for intervention, and be positioned to achieve maximum impact in minimum time.

The Director had earlier suggested that contrary to the region’s poor economic performance being blamed on the financial crisis which turned global in 2008, our problems did not begin then, but even before and was rooted in a systemic weakness in our ability and willingness to adjust to the rapidly changing global environment. Making references to the GATT trade dispute discussions of the early nineties, Coke-Hamilton said that “the requirement of reciprocity is now non-negotiable and the concept of special and differential treatment and proportionality” was no longer receiving the sympathetic hearing that it once did.

“The region, having enjoyed unparalleled access to the most developed markets of the world over four decades, have not been able to use this access to transform our economy and increase our trade performance...” she stated. (RA)

Common trade policy the only way

THE Caribbean must present itself to the world as a single trade space. This reiteration came from Programme Co-ordinator of the Caribbean Regional Technical Assistance Centre, Dr. Arnold McIntyre.

Speaking at last week’s Caribbean Exporters Colloquium held at the Hilton Barbados, Dr. Arnold remarked that a common trade and policy framework was badly needed throughout the islands. This, he said, did not mean the same rules had to exist in every place but there needed to be a few guiding principles as it related to the various hubs of economic activity.

Using the financial sector has an example, Dr. McIntyre, said that greater focus needed to be given to strengthening supervision and regulation whilst attacking vulnerabilities where they existed. He also suggested eliminating the current tax competition which existed between member states, recommending that our approach be “CARICOM corporate rates must not exceed...” as opposed to having a standard rate or alternatively, a wide variation in rates throughout the jurisdictions.

Dr. McIntyre also targeted governments’ management of their jurisdictions, opining that modern economies needed modern public sectors.

“An efficient public sector can improve the government’s implementation capacity at reduced costs [and this is necessary] as a strong fiscal position…provides the space for that government to channel more resources to promote growth...reduce debt...and support regional corporation. It’s going to be very difficult to enhance an ambitious regional integration agenda with our current [individual] financial and economic circumstances,” he argued. (RA)

CDEMA head: ‘Go back to the drawing board’ – Collymore shares thoughts for disaster management

EXECUTIVE Director of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), Jeremy Collymore, says that the Governments in the region will have to focus more attention on town and country planning, putting emphasis on disaster risk reduction and disaster management.

Collymore, who demitted office on March 31, spoke to the media recently as he reflected on his 21 years at the helm of the regional entity and where he wants to see CDEMA and disaster management in the region go in the future, suggested that countries need to be proactive, rather than reactive when it comes to disasters.

“The whole question of how we look at our decisions about use of space, what we put next to each other...we can’t do much about it now but if you are going to expand and develop infrastructure, do you want to put them all back the same place? So that is why I am saying we have to put it back into the development basket,” he said.

Collymore added, “There is no doubt in my mind that there is awareness, the challenge to persons like ourselves, is to connect that awareness and push for policy change. That is why I feel very strongly that we really take the opportunity of these reviews of the SIDS Programme of Action, the Hyogo Framework for Action and the Millennium Develop-ment Goals, to see how these are all connected around that development problem to change that mindset; if you focus it as a disaster problem you’re not going to have much impact.”

Using the example of the British Virgin Islands, the Executive Director noted that they have used hazard vulnerability assessment to inform development control permission.

“If there is an application for development they are able to place the application to see if it is a risk high area or not and then they make recommendation to the Town Planner, not to grant permission, but what are the things that need to be associated with that permission to manage the risks in the area identified. That is what we need to be doing more of,” he said.

With that in mind, he said that some governments have already started to place the ministries responsible for housing, lands, water and climate change together, recognising that they are connected and that he said, is a move in the right direction. (JRT)

Harford’s contribution to C’bean banking sector lauded

Well done, Sir Charles Williams (right) tells Ronald Harford.

A job well done! That’s the consensus among a group of private sector officials as they lauded the work and contribution of Ronald Harford to banking and economic development in the Caribbean.

Harford is this year celebrating 50 years of working with Republic Bank in Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and Grenada. He joined the then Barclays Bank in 1963. He retired as the Managing Director of Republic Bank which replaced Barclays, in 2005. However, he continues as non-executive chairman of the Bank.

Ronald Harford (right) chatting with Nick Parravincino.
In the background is businessman, Ralph Williams.

A function to celebrate the milestone of Mr. Harford was held at the residence of Managing Director, Ian De Souza.

 Mr. De Souza who took up his appointment at Republic Bank (Barbados) Limited from the beginning of this year said no one individual has had such an impact on banking in the Caribbean as Mr. Harford.
De Souza said Harford worked hard and was once described in his early years by George Money, a British banker,  as an exuberant youngster who made conversation in a free and easy manner.

“At age 39 Ron Harford was the youngest general manager the bank had every seen,” according to De Souza. He also revealed to the audience that Harford overcame and oversaw many momentous and difficult events including the bank’s computerisation project, contentious wages negotiations and industrial actions.”

Having also got useful hands on experience in most aspects of the bank’s operations, Harford was the driving force behind many important development initiatives at Republic. “Under his leadership the bank received awards such as the Banker Awards, Latin Finance Award and Global Finance award,” said DeSouza. He also played a part in Republic Bank’s expansion across the Caribbean.

Lalu Vaswani, President of the Barbados Chamber of Commerce and industry (BCCI) who presented Harford with a book on integrating values in the world of business, said they at the BCCI are proud of the achievements of Harford. Others making brief presentations and comments were Republic Bank (Barbados) Limited board members G. Anthony King and William Layne; and Businessman, Sir Charles Williams.