President Bharrat Jagdeo shares a light moment at the Conference with Co-President of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly, Mrs.Glenys Kinnock.

President Bharrat Jadgeo addressing delegates at yesterday’s opening of the Third Regional Meeting of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) European Union (EU) Joint Parliamentary Assembly. (Sonell Nelson photo)

Guyana is hosting for the first time after the previous two in Namibia and Vanuatu and will pursue its concerns surrounding the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Europe, now in its first phase of implementation with necessary components still to be formalised and its position on avoided deforestation will be advanced to encourage a united approach towards a suitable post Kyoto framework catering for market based mechanisms to benefit countries engaged in sustainable forest practices.

Former President Mrs. Janet Jagan and other officials at yesterday’s opening of the regional meeting.

Pointing out that Guyana, the region and the developing world had no part in the meltdown, he remarked that “we and the poor in developing countries are its unwilling victims.”

“Today, our capacity and ingenuity are being challenged to find innovative ways of keeping our economy in the face of a dramatic reduction of investment resources, contracting markets and falling commodity prices while, at the same time, having to deal with the legitimate demands of our people,” he noted.
CHALLENGE
Ramkarran warned the gathering: “Your challenge is to devise and set in motion a plan to avert disruption of our development and our people’s aspirations.”

Children from the St. Agnes Primary School adds a little flare to the opening ceremony.

Ramkarran continued: “Guyana’s position on the EPA has been fully ventilated and articulated and is well known. We hope that Guyana’s positions will be given full consideration in finalising your draft paper on the EPA. In addition, this time, it is vital that the resources already committed by the EU should remain committed.”

Acting Co-President of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly, Mr. Olmar Rodgers, also spoke of the global crisis and its impact.

“The basis for our meeting is the Cotonou Agreement as well as the rules of procedures of the ACP-EU Parliamentary Assembly which provide for the holding of regional meetings.

“The development and social challenges that conflict the world today can only be addressed in an atmosphere of international understanding and cooperation,” he advocated.

Rodgers said, over the last two decades, the impact of globalisation has taken a new dimension, with emphasis on regional integration and bilateral trade agreements as means of achieving and coordinating development objectives at regional level.

“Globalisation and regional agreements have social and economic consequences on individual nation States, to the extent that they affect the work of legislative bodies as well as individual parliamentarians.

“This is why I believe that it is important for parliamentarians to debate these issues and, by doing so, can contribute in finding solutions that improve the livelihood of our people,” he posited.

Rodgers said the Cotonou Agreement sets the framework for development cooperation between the ACP and the EU and, unlike other trade agreements, has a political component which spells out how this cooperation shall be administered and, if needs be, discontinued.

In his view: “The Cotonou Agreement has an additional feature that makes it unique among such agreements in providing for the formal and regular meeting of parliamentarians from Europe and the developing countries in the ACP group.”

He went on: “For instance, in the Caribbean, we have, for many years, been talking about the economic and social impacts of EPA negotiations on the agriculture sectors in our countries such as bananas and sugar.

“We feel that, as parliamentarians, we have legitimate concerns to enquire about such issues,” Rodgers said.
REGULATION
“On the other hand,” he said, “the effects of the last two years, that have led to the current financial and economic crisis, have highlighted the need for more effective regulation and oversight of international financial and economic issues.”

Rodgers added: “I believe that there are issues of governance and inclusiveness, of decision making processes, at both national and international levels, that have been called into question as the result of this crisis.”

“This is the reason why, as parliamentarians, we must take interest in what is happening, through international and regional agreements and what role we can play in this process as elected representatives of the people.”

He said the experiences with the EPA negotiations in the past seven years have revealed the inadequacies of parliamentary involvement in the process and the body has expressed displeasure at the marginal scope of it.

“Parliamentary oversight of international agreements is one of the least understood and undertaken mandates in most of the parliaments of developing countries.

“There are many current issues that we should be courageous enough to discuss in our respective national parliaments and on which we can bring our collective influence to urge governments to take positive action.

“Because of the current financial and economic global crisis, we, as parliamentarians, have to pay closer attention to the effects of the EPA,” he contended.

Rodgers acknowledged that: “The European Commission (EC) is a major contributor to the budgets of some ACP States. Through Cotonou, the EC is the most important trading partner to ACP States and the trade protocol of Cotonou has far reaching effects on ACP states.

“But, as you know, the political dimension of Cotonou has gained as much prominence in ACP-EU relations, affecting the amount and quality of EC assistance to ACP States.

“These are indeed challenging times. With enough resolve and commitment and collective effort at national and international level, we can all play a part in addressing this development challenges,” he maintained.

Co-President of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly, Mrs. Glenys Kinnock, agreed that the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) has warned governments in the region to brace themselves to deal with the global financial crisis and be prepared to address the negative effects of what may well be a deep and long recession.

“We must remember that it is poor people in developing countries who are far more exposed if their economies falter,” she reminded.

Noting that this will result in lower growth, volatile exchange rates and stocks markets, higher unemployment and poverty levels, Kinnock also hinted at more fragility which “of course, in the long run, will jeopardise our efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) targets.”
AID
She said: “What we want is front loaded, predictable and efficiently delivered aid to developing countries and, indeed, for democratic reform of the international financial architecture.”

Kinnock said she understands and is very keen to learn more about the proposal which is coming from the United Kingdom Government.

“I understand, in the G20 Meeting, it will be one of things on the agenda,” she offered.

“I think the G22 should listen to the voices of the developing world, which they did not in their last meeting and should call for a development emergency for 2009 and urge every possible effort to accelerate the disbursement of already approved funds which sit there needing to be used,” Kinnock said.

She said a critical element for this region, alongside the slowdown in investment, difficulties in raising capital, falls in remittances, diminishing foreign reserves and falls in export, is, of course, the growing threat to tourism.

“Tourism has become the driver of economic advances in so many Caribbean countries. There are, in your region, great concerns about the effects of climate change on small islands and low-lying coastal countries such as Guyana and Belize,” Kinnock agreed.

Acknowledging the efforts of President Bharrat Jagdeo in this regard, she said, to him: “You are offering real leadership on these matters and you are ensuring that we understand more about environmental security in the build up to Copenhagen.”

Touching on other economic and social problems such as HIV/AIDS and poverty, Kinnock said she hopes President Barack Obama will work to change the tone and the substance of United States (U.S.) relations with Cuba.