Regional NGOs urged to rekindle the spirit of solidarity

Regional Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) under the umbrella grouping of the Caribbean Policy Development Centre, have been urged to rekindle their spirit of solidarity or face the consequences – one of which is the demise of the movement.

“Either we cooperate together or we die”, was the strong message from Chairman of the CPDC, Renwick Rose, when he delivered the feature address at the opening ceremony of a two day workshop for regional civil society organisations currently taking place in Grenada.

“We need to look seriously at the state of play for us in the regions, NGOs need to respect themselves as we move forward; as many of you are fully aware there is a lack of respect for us especially among our Governments,” said Rose, as he recalled the challenges of having to do a presentation at a recent Heads of Government CARICOM meeting.

“They attitude was like, do your presentation and go; after we had spent time preparing our paper to engage them in full discussion, we were treated as if they were doing us a favour. But, as you know and many of you have being around long to know that as a fact, we in civil society have made and continue to make our contribution to regional development,” Rose said.

“There is a serious erosion with regards to the spirit of solidarity to each other, we don’t support each other as we should,” he stressed.

“The civil society representatives are engaging in frank discussions as they review they present status and decide on the future of they involvement in the development of the region.

While Governments in the region have generally maintained a stable social and economic environment in the region, the involvement of civil society actors has also been critical in advancing key development goals. (LS)

More needs to be done regarding drought impact

 Executive Director of the Caribbean
Disaster Emergency Management Agency
(CDEMA), Ronald Jackson.

Countries in the region are still not doing enough when it comes to calculating and tracking the impact of drought and dry season on their respective economies.

This was expressed by the Executive Director of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), Ronald Jackson during the Agency’s annual press conference, on Monday.

He acknowledged that at least four of CDEMA’s participating states – Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago initiated water rationing programmes as a coping strategy; with St. Lucia declaring a water emergency.

“Whilst we have not yet received the cost of the drought or the cost of the dry season impact of the countries of the region – as I can imagine, they are still in the midst of trying to calculate and tally the impact of the drought events, some of which are still facing those dry conditions,” he said, also pointing out that countries did not call upon CDEMA to initiate any support to them in the face of this challenge.

“It is one of those areas that I think we need to be able to capture, when we look at our various macroeconomic pictures. It is impacting us significantly when you look at season over season, and the impact on specific industries such as agriculture, and even increased cost to provide water supply to tourism and health,” he explained.

The Executive Director further indicated that the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology and CDEMA are working together to strengthen drought management programmes within the various countries.

“With their input – the research that they are currently conducting understand longer-term forecast for drought within the region, thereby improving and enhancing planning. Hopefully this will help the countries to better budget for, and plan for the dry season when it comes along,” it was further pointed out.

“As we move into the rainy season we must be mindful of the conditions created by the drought. The surface areas are now quite dry and compacted and ideal for rapid run-off, which typically can result in flash flooding. We are therefore urging the public across the region to be aware of this risk and to take the necessary precaution to reduce the effects that are likely, should it occur,” he stressed. (TL)

Model legislation being worked on

Russell Franklyn, Officer in Charge of CARICOM Regional Organisation of Standards and Quality (CROSQ), says policy across the region, as it relates to standards and quality, is not at all where his office would like to see it.

Speaking to the media following the opening of the Regional Food Safety Preparedness Meeting at the Hilton Barbados on Wednesday, Franklyn said that to address this, one aspect of the 10th European Development Fund (EDF) Programme is focused on updating legislation across the region.

His comments came as he lamented that while a number of countries have signed onto World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreements, for example, they have not made their legislation WTO compliant, particularly as it relates to standardisation and technical barriers to trade (TBT).

“We are hoping through the 10th EDF programme to come up with a model legislation which would make it easier for member states to update their legislation, especially those who haven’t as yet. There are a few member states who have, but the others would have a model that they can use to become compliant,” he said.

Outdated legislation

The lack of appropriate policy is also a concern for the Inter-American Institute for Co-operation on Agriculture (IICA). IICA Representative in Trinidad and Tobago and Co-ordinator – Regional Integration, Gregg Rawlins, noted that a lot of the legislation concerning animal and plant health is very dated, and there is in particular, a need for legislation in the area of food safety, including fish quality.

“Similar to the TBT programme, the 10th EDF SPS [Sanitary and Phytosanitary] component will focus a lot on supporting member states on moving forward the legislation. There has already been some model legislation developed. What we want to do is help member states to be able to get the legislation through the processes, and one of the things we want to do in that regard is generate information that would justify assigning priority to legislation in relation to SPS and related matters,” the IICA representative said.

Rawlins noted the aim is to highlight the economic implications of not taking action in that regard. He suggested that given the large legislative agenda of countries, unless such an approach is taken, food safety and related legislation and policies will always be “at the bottom of the pile”.

“So we want to make that economic justification to say that if you don’t do this, the consequences for health, the consequences for business, the consequences for imports and so on, could be very serious,” he stated. (JRT)

Size doesn’t matter: Small not a setback

Once again, nationals within the Caribbean region are being reminded that their mirror image, or perception of self, is most important.

On Sunday at the church service in observance of World Environment Day and the 20th Anniversary of the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) Conference at the Cathedral of St. Michael and All Angels in Barbados, the Very Rev. Dr. Frank Marshall, Dean of the Cathedral, called on these states in the Caribbean to assess what ‘small’ means to them in their eyes, not just individually, but collectively.
Recalling the first SIDS Conference held in Barbados in 1994, the Dean asked the region to build on its foundation, to forge ahead in “heightening co-operation”.

He called on the states “to have the faith to accept each other and to perceive that in joint collaboration, these states can together dream, embolden each other, conceive, assume a new-life experience, develop and anchor themselves more securely on earth’s rock”.

The Dean recommended, “[…] In the context of our global environment and the varying classifications of countries – developed, developing, underdeveloped, big and small – that the countries of our region need to commence or re-commence by being affirming of each other.”

Pushing for the region to move beyond insularity and further develop a proud identity as a region, he said, “[A] relationship with the wider global environment is a must, but even more vital is how we relate with our actual neighbourhood, as a people, with more around which we can unite and build.”

Dean Marshall therefore made an appeal for the islands in the region to invest in each other as Caribbean people in the interest of the nations, the region and future generations.

He said, “We need to be realistic about the true potential of our states, when desire and will are applied to the task. Treating our ‘smallness’ as a positive, we must selflessly commit to achieve our higher good and to build capacity.” (KG)

Laws at odds with basic human rights

Sir George Alleyne, Chancellor, University of the West Indies.

Chancellor of the University of the West Indies, Sir George Alleyne, has cried down governments of the region for continuing to uphold “archaic” legislation which contradicts our otherwise clear stance and determination to uphold the basics rights of a human.

Addressing members and friends of the Barbados Family Planning Association (BFPA) at its Annual General Meeting held last Thursday evening, Sir Alleyne highlighted the need for persons to re-examine the notion and interpretation of human sexuality. He suggested that one of the challenges going forward would be how the BFPA treated the issue of groups that were being marginalised on account of their choice of sexual expression.

He was of the firm view that “sexual health was important for our well-being and that sexuality is essential to our humanity”. Sir Alleyne remarked that though humans are sexual beings, matters of sexuality were often a “reflection of defining binary thought – it is one or the other, things are good or bad – and this would be comforting at one level but not a recipe for fruitful discourse or dialogue”.

The senior academic charged that the Caribbean needs to fast come to terms with the fact that there were “normal variations” in the manner in which that sexuality and the sexual urges of persons were expressed.

“Some of our pertinent laws are archaic in this respect, and I fear often... and with some sorrow, that the only countries in this hemisphere in which sex between consenting adults, males [that is]... is a criminal offence...those countries are to be found in the Caribbean,” Sir Alleyne lamented.

“It’s even sadder that... these laws are a reflection of thinking in our society, societies which proudly embrace constitutions which speak clearly to the observation of basic human rights. This is a contradiction which I often find difficult to embrace...” the Chancellor further submitted.

Using the occasion to publicly back what he referred to as UWI’s affirmation in the Professor Brendan Bain affair that “criminalisation of consensual sex between males, resulting in stigmatisation... is a denial of their basic human rights”, the Chancellor argued that Caribbean societies must be “uncompromising and passionate in our efforts to decrease stigma and provide access to services and to increase recognition of sexuality as a positive aspect of human life”.

On this issue, he concluded, “The marginalised groups such as young people, transgender people, sex workers, men having sex with men, people who are gay lesbian or bisexual, child brides, girl mothers, they need our help, [they] our compassion.” (RS)

Many potential World Heritage sites in region

The region’s National Trusts share the belief that the Caribbean is undersubscribed in terms of World Heritage sites.

Chairman of the recently concluded first Caribbean Conference of National Trusts, Professor Emeritus Henry Fraser, said that all of the attending participants agreed that there were more sites within the region that should be placed on the prestigious list.

Currently there are 17 sites across the region, eight of which are in Cuba. The last site in the Caribbean to be accepted onto the list was this island’s Historic Bridgetown and the Garrison.

“A lot of us have felt that the Caribbean is under subscribed in terms of World Heritage sites. We have this huge Caribbean pool of indigenous people. We have 300 years of colonial struggle and yet there are very few sites,” he told The Grenada Advocate.

Fraser therefore disclosed that this was one of the areas that the group would be addressing.

“So there is a huge impetus among some of us to see whether we could use a conference like this to sensitise people and to facilitate other sites that deserve it to become world heritage sites,” he added.

The sites discussed included Nelson’s Dockyard in Antigua, East Dry River in Trinidad, Pigeon Island in St. Lucia, and the already nominated Petro Trails, St. Vincent, and John Crow Mountains and Blue Mountain Range in Jamaica.

Admitting that the Barbados National Trust was in desperate need of funds, he expressed his hope that through networking with those from within the region, it would “give us an entree for getting global funding as several organisations getting together to ask for money would have more of an impact than a single entity”. (JMB)

EXPORT POTENTIAL

Recent figures have indicated that the global food and beverage industry is growing at 3.5 per cent per annum, and is projected to be worth more than US$7 trillion this year.

Referring to those statistics, Exec-utive Director of Caribbean Export Development Agency, Pamela Coke-Hamilton, explained that her agency realises that in order for CARIFORUM firms in that industry to retain and increase their share of the global market, they must be equipped to enter export markets and maintain a competitive edge.  

Her comments came during the Regional Food Safety Preparedness Meeting, which took place at the Hilton Barbados Hotel last week Wednesday.

Executive Director of the Caribbean Export Development
Agency, Pamela Coke-Hamilton, addressing the meeting.

A section of the audience which attended
the meeting last week Wednesday.

Using the example of the EU market, Coke-Hamilton noted that while having successfully completed the Economic Partnership Agreement has given products from the region duty-free quota-free market access to the European Union, it is still important that such products meet the standards of the importing country.

“This is increasingly true given emerging global food safety requirements. For CARIFORUM food and agro-producers, merely stating that our food products are of a high quality is insufficient to satisfy the demands of consumers and government abroad,” she warned.

She explained that when exporting, such producers must meet a number of requirements and standards for food and food products, which vary from country to country. The Caribbean Export head noted that in addition to Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures, exporters must also meet the technical barriers to trade requirements which cover such areas as food labelling, nutritional claims and packaging, which have implications for the Caribbean private sector.

The Executive Director contended that unless regional firms comply with international standards, they will be constrained to the local and regional markets, which are also open to imports which create competition for those products.

“It is, therefore, imperative that all players with the mandate to support private sector development must play their role in getting our firms equipped to penetrate export markets. Firms need to be made aware of the issues that affect them, they need financial and technical assistance with meeting the new and emerging global food safety requirements and they also need con-tinued efforts at both export development and promotion,” she added.

Coke-Hamilton’s comments came as she noted that several CARIFORUM firms have already achieved success in the export market. Among them, she stated, are Banks Holdings from Barbados, Marie Sharpe from Belize and Baron Foods from St. Lucia, which were awarded the coveted Taste 13 Award at ANUGA 2013 – the largest food and beverage trade show in the world. She said their accomplishment should be lauded, as only 54 of the almost 7 000 companies exhibiting products at ANUGA received that award.


“This is testimony to the fact that we have world class brands doing business every day in our region. International buyers were impressed with the value added and differentiation displayed among our companies… Success stories like these indicate that we can compete at the global level. It should also motivate us to do our utmost to ensure that more firms can have similar stories, which in the end can only auger well for regional economic growth. What’s left is for us to put all the structures in place, whether it is at the policy, the business support, or firm level, to truly reap the benefits,” the Caribbean Export head added. (JRT)