Governments advised to consider Regional Water Investment Facility

Consultant with Coles Engineering Group, Jans Janssens.

Caribbean governments are being advised to look into building new opportunities for financing projects aimed at the improvement of water supply.

Consultant with Coles Engineering Group, Jans Janssens, spoke on the creation of a Regional Water Investment Facility for this purpose.

He outlined that this would help utilities to make  the investments in the water sector, especially those utilities that are at the margin of bank abilities which do not yet have the access to commercial finance because today it would not only be public finance or commercial finance, it will be hybrid grand commercial and public and such a facility can help bridge the gap you have to go in that direction,” he said.

Some of the participants at the workshop.

As he spoke on ‘Water Sector Opportunities in Region’ on the first of a two-day workshop Regional Sector Assessment Workshop at the Caribbean Development Bank conference room on Monday morning in Barbados, Janssens told those specialists gathered that they should also look into developing a Regional Investment Portfolio targeted on non-revenue water.

Janssens remarked that it was unacceptable that non-revenue water was at the rate of between 17 to 66 percent in regional countries.

Noting that desalination was now having a heavier presence in the region, he suggested that it may be necessary to look into reducing the energy consumption utilized by such plants, while pointing out such a facility in one country, which is run completely by solar energy.

“You may even have to bring in the public sector in these kinds of arrangements to operate the pumping stations and pay it back by the savings in energy,” Janssens added. (JMB)

Speak out!

The time has come for Caribbean women to let their voices be heard louder on the issue of violence against women.

President of the Barbados Senate, Senator Kerryann Ifill, made the call while delivering the feature address at the installation and closing ceremony of the 22nd Biennial Conference of the Caribbean Association of Women (CARIWA), in Barbados recently. Her comments came as she lamented the increasing instances of violence against women across the region, and in particular in Barbados over the last year.

President of the Barbados Senate, Senator Kerryann Ifill,
delivering an address at the 22nd Biennial Conference of CARIWA.

“We need to find a method, a means to change the course that these men in the Caribbean are going down and some of our sisters, who believe erroneously that this is the way we have to live – it has been so and it will remain so. But it does not have to be so,” she contended.

She added, “It breaks my heart as it does yours, when I pick up the paper and read about another woman who has been found dead. Then you hear it is some man that did this to her because she said no; or she ended a relationship; or he thought she looked at another man a funny way; or he constructed a relationship in his head.”

Senator Ifill contended that no matter what excuse is given for the man’s actions, a woman’s life is ended, her children’s lives devastated, and her family will never recovery.

She said the problem is not unique to Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad or Antigua, it is a Caribbean wide problem ,and for that reason, she noted it is important that organisations like CARIWA continue to work in spite of the challenges that the member organisations face in their various territories.

“I recognise that this time your concentration was on disaster preparedness. As West Indian women, we know that we live constantly recognising the vulnerabilities of our territories. But one of the disasters we live with is the cruelty against our women. We have to be prepared to cope with and to deal with this situation,” she maintained.

With that in mind, she urged the CARIWA members present to be prepared to return to their countries and recommit to strengthening Caribbean women, so as to ensure that in the future, CARIWA and similar organisations will be able to thrive on the backs of strong Caribbean women.

“We are facing difficult times, we are facing challenging times, but these challenges may change. The ones we are living with today may not be there tomorrow, but new challenges will arise. Let us recommit ourselves to being strong and to continuing to strengthen those with whom we live, that we can encourage a more productive and stronger Caribbean region.” (JRT)

Unity important, says Senator Ifill

THE member organisations of the Caribbean Association of Women (CARIWA) are being urged to continue working together to advance the rights of women across this region.

That call has come from the President of the Barbados Senate, Senator Kerryann Ifill. She made it while delivering the feature address at the recent installation and closing ceremony of the 22nd Biennial Conference of CARIWA in Barbados, as she noted that many organisations are often faced with the challenge of developing and sustaining a unified purpose.

“It has been my experience that we have meetings every year, every two years, as regional entities, and at the end of the conference, we are inspired, we are invigorated, we will knock down walls, we will march on this, we will take sledgehammers to that.

“Then we go home, and in three months time, who’s CARIWA? And we remember it two weeks before the conference, two years later,” she said.

Senator Ifill added, “Those of us who have the opportunity to have staffed secretariats, we’re a little bit more organised than that, but we still find it a struggle to maintain the momentum across the region… and it takes a lot more effort than we thought it should take.”

While that is often the reality of organisations, Senator Ifill maintained that CARIWA must not lose hope, and instead strive to ensure that the mandate that has been set out in the recently concluded meeting and prior meetings, are effectively executed.

Upholding rights

Her comments came as she noted that while the Caribbean does have its own unique challenges that face women and girls, the region has much to be thankful for. Nevertheless, as she referred to examples of injustices perpetrated against women, Senator Ifill said organisations like CARIWA must endeavour to keep the rights of women and girls foremost in the minds of the region.

“We are a blessed people. Not just blessed because we live in some of the best surroundings, some of the most beautiful; our countries are relatively stable politically. We don’t have to cope with wars; we don’t have to cope with a lot of the struggles and challenges that people face in other places… We in the Caribbean don’t have to face such indignities, not on the scale that people in Africa and Asia and other territories have to face,” she added. (JRT)

ACCESS IS ESSENTIAL

Every person in this region should have access to water and sanitation.

Stressing that this was imperative, Vice President of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) Operations Division, Nigel Romano, stressed that effective water management must therefore be a top development priority.

Some of the officials in attendance at the workshop on Tuesday.

It is for this reason that several technical specialists from regional organisations and regulatory agencies gathered for a two-day Regional Sector Assessment Workshop to discuss the findings of a study commissioned by the CDB in 2012 on the state of water in the Caribbean.

Addressing the official opening of that workshop at the CDB on Tuesday, Romano highlighted that over the past four decades, there has been a decline in freshwater availability, in some cases by as high as 50 per cent, while water losses from theft, leakage, and other situations ranged from 17 to 66 per cent in CDB’s Borrowing Member Countries (BMCs).

In addition, he outlined that between 70 to 100 per cent of people in the region were not connected to a centralised sewerage system; less than 90 per cent of the people in four BMCs have access to pipe water; and in 10 water utilities, operational costs exceed operational service revenues.

“All of the key regional development challenges, including energy generation and usage; food security; natural disaster management; and the preservation of the environment, are closely linked to effective water management. Therefore, CDB has a vested interest in the water and sanitation sector because it is key to the achievement of our development mandate,” he added.

Therefore, he noted that water managers must lead the charge to find new and innovative approaches to address the challenges facing the sector.

“Primary among these challenges are inadequate tariff structures; inadequate financing for capital works; inefficient water supply networks; inadequate access in rural communities; inadequate management systems for collecting, treating and safely disposing of waste water; weak data management capability for water resource management; high and increasing per capita usage coupled with a decline in resource availability; and a shortage of capacity in the region, especially in the areas of planning and preparing for the increased risks associated with climate change,” he said. (JMB)

Quantifying a changing relationship

Trying to describe the overall outcome of the Eighth UK-Caribbean Forum, the biennial government to government dialogue that took place in London on June 16/17, is far from easy. On the one hand it is clear that this ‘summit’, which was intended to reset Britain’s relationship with the Caribbean, had a number of clear and important deliverables. On the other, it is hard to assess quite where this once special relationship in almost constant flux for more than fifty years, will be in another twenty.

So much so, that even the UK seemed uncertain about how to portray its nature and substance. As it began, a short notice appeared on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website that characterised the relationship as ‘unique’ and as being based on friendship, mutual understanding and shared values.

This Forum, however, was different compared to any previously held, being much more focussed on deliverables, with it being accepted that virtually nothing had resulted from the thirty one action points agreed at the last one in Grenada in January 2012.

As an overall theme, the eighth had as its objective building a stronger partnership able to enhance Caribbean economic growth, competitiveness and prosperity, with particular attention being paid to energy security, the development of skills and education, and the ways in which more might be done to tackle security concerns.

When it came to energy and education there was a meeting of minds.

It was agreed that the UK will support technical assistance that will catalyse a regional gas market. For their part, Caribbean governments continue to explore the regional potential for natural gas and other forms of sustainable energy as an alternative to imports of fuel oil. It was also agreed that the UK will share its experience of managing renewable energy systems through private sector-led mechanisms relating to smart grids, and better distribution and energy management systems. Britain also offered to work with regional regulators and utility companies to encourage utility reform.

The other area in which the two sides found a high level of resonance was in relation to education and skills. In an interesting recognition of the need to support the Caribbean prepare for the world of tomorrow, the Forum agreed that both sides would explore, with partner organisations such as universities, think-tanks, civil society, cultural organisations, and the private sector, establishing programmes that bring together young leaders from the UK and Caribbean in business, entrepreneurship, civil society and academia to develop their leadership potential and exchange experiences.

On security, while there was agreement on the problems posed by organised crime, the Caribbean made clear that capitals would have to decide whether to accede to Britain’s request to implement, as the communiqué put it, reciprocal asset-sharing agreements, automatic tax information exchange arrangements, exchanging criminality data, and effective extradition regimes.

However, what became clear during the meeting was that many of the most immediate issues for the Caribbean, such as the need for new terms of engagement between small states and larger developing and developed economies, and help to address the graduation of much of the region out of development assistance, were matters on which Britain would only agree that greater consultation would be required.

Much the same held true when it came to Caribbean concerns about the impact that UK visa policy is having on business persons and entertainers seeking to benefit from the services opportunities in the Economic Partnership Agreement with Europe, or continuing Caribbean concern that Air Passenger Duty was having a negative impact on Caribbean tourism, despite the welcome development earlier in the year that resulted in the UK tax on flights to the Caribbean being reduced.


Speaking to Caribbean Foreign Ministers during and after the event to try to understand from a Caribbean perspective how they saw the meeting, it was clear that they had a sense that the approach of the United Kingdom had changed.

But beyond its welcome but essentially short- to medium-term offers of functional support, the Forum for them seemed to confirm, perhaps intentionally, the existing perception in the region that the future role of Britain will be very different.

While they welcomed what they saw as a new realism and a willingness to focus on specific concerns especially education and energy security, they seemed individually uncertain about where this more limited approach will take the dialogue in future. The sense was still of family, but one in which a benign parent had retired and was looking forward to helping the grandchildren.

Gone, they felt, were any previous assumptions about the relationship; but while the cultural ties remained strong, its future depth seemed less certain. Some observed that the UK was trying to identify a new role for itself within a limited budget, so that when it came to issues of real concern it was unclear whether the UK was prepared to make a difference. The point was also made that the role of the public sector in generating growth in small societies was not well understood by British Ministers as being of importance. Others felt the new approach was driven by the recognition by both sides that the Caribbean now had many other partners to work with.

Although helpfully Caricom published on its website the opening remarks for Caricom by the Chair of its Committee on Foreign Relations, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, Guyana’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, at this eighth Forum, there were no public speeches opening or closing the event.

Instead the only part open to a broader audience was a well attended session on investment to which a business audience was invited and another with professionals in the Caribbean’s UK Diaspora at which UK politicians for the main parties and representatives from the Caribbean answered questions on UK-Caribbean relations.

To monitor what happens next and avoid what happened to the decisions coming out of the Grenada Forum it was agreed that the two sides will meet again in the Caribbean in 2016 to review progress.

The Eighth UK-Caribbean Forum made clear that the relationship the nature of the engagement with the UK continues to change and has become more functional and pragmatic. If the Caribbean has any interest in making it different, it has few options left the most prominent of which must be finding ways in which its future leaders in all parts of society engage the new and successful generation in its UK Diaspora interested in and able to lobby on policy, and make a difference as British citizens.

(David Jessop is the Director of the Caribbean Council and can be contacted at david.jessop@ caribbean-council.org. Previous columns can be found at www.caribbean-council.org)

Human trafficking: The US should help not hector

Human trafficking is a despicable, dehumanising and exploitative practice that is rightly described as ‘modern day slavery’. That its principal victims are women and children, who are not only stripped of their rights but also of their humanity, is a stain of disgrace on governments that fail to act to stop the perpetrators.

Trafficking in Persons (TIP) is an umbrella term for the act of recruiting, harbouring, transporting, providing, or obtaining a person for compelled labour or commercial sex acts through the use of force, fraud, or coercion. The United States government has adopted a Trafficking Victims Protection Act that describes this practice in different terms, including involuntary servitude, slavery or practices similar to slavery, debt bondage, and forced labour.

To be fair to many governments – particularly in small countries with limited resources – they are not all fully aware of the extent of the practice or of the myriad ways in which it is carried-on, including the voluntary participation of some of its victims at the beginning when they have no understanding of the snare in which they eventually are entrapped.

In this connection, questions have to be raised about the right that the United States government has abrogated to itself to produce an annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report that identifies and brands countries in four tiers based on what the US State Department says is “information from US embassies, government officials, non-governmental and international organisations, published reports, news articles, academic studies, research trips to every region of the world, and information submitted to tipreport@state.gov”.

The four tiers into which the US categories countries are: Tier 1 – governments fully comply with the minimum standards of a US law – the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA); Tier 2 – governments do not fully comply with the TVPA’s minimum standards, but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance; Tier 2 Watch List (WL) – governments do not fully comply with the TVPA’s minimum standards, but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance, and (a) the absolute number of victims of severe forms of trafficking is very significant or is significantly increasing; there is a failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons from the previous year; or (c) the determination that a government is making significant efforts to bring itself into compliance was based on commitments to take additional future steps over the next year; Tier 3 – governments do not fully comply with the minimum standards.

Of the 14 independent countries of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Dominica, Grenada and St Kitts-Nevis are omitted completely from the US 2014 list, although St Kitts-Nevis was named as a Tier 2 WL country in 2013. Therefore, they are not now identified as being compliant nor are they judged to be non-compliant. The reason for their omission is not stated.

Of the remaining 11, four of them – Bahamas, Barbados, St Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago – are listed in Tier 2. The remaining seven are on the Tier 2 Watch List – Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Suriname.

Additionally, Barbados is the only CARICOM country that is identified as not being party to the ‘Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children’. This is surely not a deliberate act on the part of the Barbados government, and it would do well to rectify this situation.

The US government deserves commendation and appreciation for the vanguard position it has adopted against TIP whose victims are, invariably, desperate and vulnerable women or children with no capacity to resist. But, while US Secretary of State, John Kerry, said that the US annual TIP “Report is not about pointing fingers”, that, unfortunately, is precisely what it does. The effect of identifying countries in the three lower tiers 2, 2 Watch List and 3, is to stigmatise them even where governments are genuinely concerned about the issue but lack resources, both human and financial, to tackle it comprehensively. Small countries are confronted with declining economic prospects as a consequence of reduced aid, unfair terms of trade, pressure on their main productive sectors and a raft of demands to establish costly regulatory and enforcement machinery. To these already trying circumstances must now be added the machinery for tackling human trafficking.

Of course, every government, including governments of small countries, must join in the fight to stop TIP, but richer countries – especially those who stigmatise others – should contribute to the financial costs of doing so. In this regard, constructive engagement with governments of financially-strapped small and least developed countries to help them would be infinitely better than the government of one country branding them as non-compliant.

A further dimension to the problem of the US government producing a report that slots countries into categories determined by the US only, is that such a report lacks global authority and scrutiny. And, it is not as if there is no United Nations entity dealing with the problem.

The UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNDOC) is engaged with the criminal justice element of human trafficking and its mandate could be expanded both to produce a global report on the actions of every government, and to provide technical and financial assistance to small and vulnerable countries and less developed states to help bring them into compliance with standards set by the UN.

Rather than being the world’s unilateral enforcer on this issue – as in many others – the US might find that a genuine multilateral approach would be far more productive. A multilateral approach would remove the one-country ‘big stick’, and, instead, establish internationally agreed standards backed up by financial resources for implementation.

To the extent that they can manage it – all countries and especially those in the Caribbean that have suffered slavery and indentured labour – should work together to eliminate human trafficking from the region. At the same time, countries like the US should help not hector.

(Sir Ronald Sanders is a Consultant, Senior Fellow at London University and former Caribbean diplomat. Responses and previous commentaries: www. sirronaldsanders.com)

Caribbean, UK to deal with challenges

EVERYONE – that is people in the Caribbean – will definitely look forward to the commitments the UK has made in helping its former colonies in this region come to grips and resolving many of the challenges these islands continue to face. This is what will be expected from the UK Caribbean Ministerial Forum recently. Such occasions present parties on both sides of the table to discuss in a passionate way concerns raised by one and promises from the other to see how they can co-operate to correct. It is only through consultations that parties and even individuals resolve differences and identify areas through which they can both co-operate to deal effectively with pressing issues.

Prior to the convening of the Forum, Mark Simmonds, the UK’s Foreign Office Minister for the Caribbean, explained just where his country stands in forging closer ties with this region of approximately six million people. Correspondence from the British High Commission in Barbados quoted the Minister as saying that the forum, the first of which took place in 1998, remained the centre-piece for high level discussions between both sides on the big issues. He said as well both the British and Caribbean governments are working with real vigour to boost economic growth, tackle the debt burden regional countries are wilting under, and to create jobs opportunities for our citizens. It is no mean sport when a small group of island nations with open economies and demonstrating vulnerabilities of every sort, must confront what to them is a global climate that brings with some very challenging conditions be they economic or social. Therefore every offer of help will be more than welcomed by the Caribbean.

What makes this commitment by the UK so significant is that it offers hope and paves the way for increased co-operation and exchange of ideas that best suit the requirements deemed as important for the achievement of progress in this part of the world. It would be recalled not so long ago that the Caribbean islands, as Tourism destinations, were up in arms with the UK authorities over the controversial Air Passenger Duty (APD) which negatively affected the flow of visits from the UK to the Caribbean. Both collectively through the Caribbean Tourism Organisation and individually, Caribbean islands had mounted all kinds of responses to the British Government to have the APD removed. The imposition was not in their best interest as it had threatened to cripple the tourism industry and a market (the UK) which is still a very lucrative source market for long-stay visitors coming to these shores. To their credit they have got something of a respite and hopefully the APD will be a thing of the past. However, this will call for even more greater effort in demonstrating just how vital tourism is to the tourism dominated economies and why threats like an APD cannot by tolerated. Equally, the debt burden which has been a major talking point in the Caribbean has to be dealt with.

Luckily, so far, the heavily indebted nations of this region have not reneged on their debt repayment although some have sought debt rescheduling with creditors. This is unlike the events of the 1980s when some Latin American countries decided they were in no position to meet debt repayment and subsequently defaulted. In a nutshell, therefore, we require all the help we can get and will be holding the British to their words.