CARIBBEAN integration (CARICOM 1973) was conceptualised and developed primarily on the Region’s historical, political, social, economic and cultural experiences, which shouldered the necessity of ensuring the collective survival and development of its peoples.
Given that change is inevitable and that challenges are presented therefrom, for the Region and its peoples to avoid extinction or new forms of colonisation, we have to ensure our relevance and independence by strengthening linkages through development of a common programme geared at safeguarding and enhancing our well-being.

The decision in 1989 to establish the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) emerged from a desire to provide more and better opportunities among participating member states and their peoples to produce and sell our goods and services and to attract investment through one large market. During 13th and 14th January, leaders from the trade union, business and civil society communities met in Georgetown to discuss and sensitise themselves on CARICOM’s instruments governing free movement of skills — a component within CSME that is aimed towards ensuring clarity with regard to responsibility and impact.

It should be said that where development is now not determined by a nation’s Gross Domestic Product, but other measurements — such as poverty reduction and respect for human rights — the conceptualising, developing and successful implementation of programmes cannot lose sight of these realities.

Today’s development requires input/feedback from those who would be affected by decisions. Consequently, the greater utility in this approach to the success of the CSME, as against calling leaders together and engaging in talk, needs to be examined. At a people-centred level, ours is a culture that respects engagement such as community/town hall meetings and call-in-programmes, where feedback/ input can be derived from those most required for its success — the masses. It should be said, too, that such is not dissimilar to the universal principle of the right to involvement.

To this end, the developing and drafting of the CSME/ free movement of skills, which were done in offices and boardrooms by technicians without engagement/input from the masses, ought to be examined. And this is in light of evidence where protocols on these issues, while embraced by member states, still see the awareness of the applications remaining among a privileged few.

And even where there exists the notion that the CSME is about trade, it ought to be said that for trade to be successful, the people must be depended on, be they the worker/citizen from the productive, distributive or consumptive levels. With the absence of people’s input and understanding, an environment has been created in which citizens of member states feel threatened or less welcoming to the movement of other citizens into their territories and their being given equal access to employment/economic opportunities.

There are instances in which migrant workers/businesses would secure employment/opportunities under conditions locals would not accept. These scenarios create potential for friction among the people, and inequitable development among participating states.

It also ought not to be lost sight of that, in developing a single market and economy, success is reliant on a single development plan that factors in the provision of goods and services to meet not only the needs of the indigenous population, but also those of the importing population. For instance, in planning for education and housing, a country should not confine its decisions to the indigenous population’s growth, but should also factor in migrant influx.

Failure to do so can result in shocks to systems/infrastructures that can create upheavals, inner city slums, compromised healthcare, and functional illiteracy, among other ills. These are factors that regional development must consider important in moving forward, as against the current approach.

For while leaders are cocooned in boardrooms and conference centres deliberating, the people have already designed ways and means of moving which are not necessarily consistent with universal principles and laws. These pose threats to the well-intentioned objective of the CSME, the Region’s growth, and its peoples’ development.