–  Dr. Edward Greene
NEW cooperation blocs among countries in the Caribbean and Latin America should not be seen as threats to CARICOM regionalism.
Instead, they may form the basis for Caribbean youth to further strengthen the role of Caribbean states in the global arena as they perceive the role and function of regional integration in a more dynamic way. This is the view of Dr. Edward Greene, CARICOM Assistant Secretary-General Human and Social Development expressed at the Opening Session of the Youth Forum at the Organisation of American States (OAS) in Washington DC, USA yesterday to discuss the results of the Report of the CARICOM Commission on Youth Development (CCYD).
His remarks were made under the theme `Keeping an Eye on the Future’ which draws from the title of the Report of the CCYD, `Eye on the Future: Investing in Youth Now for Tomorrow’s Community’.

Dr. Greene highlighted key developments within the Caribbean Community including the achievements under the CARICOM Single Market and Economy.

He pointed out that strategic developments towards functional cooperation in tourism and transportation, for example, could broaden the basis of regionalism beyond the legal boundaries of the CSME that makes for a more viable and mature regionalism.

“In this regard, the various strands of cooperation involving CARICOM states, in the OECS, ACS, CDCC, ALBA, the South American Union, and the more recent proposal for a LAC Union should not be seen as threats to CARICOM regionalism, but to variable geometry of regionalism that reflects a variety of functional arrangements,” Dr. Greene said.

A statement from the CARICOM Secretariat said Greene  also alluded to the economic recession from which the world was emerging, as well as the fluid contemporary political climate in the Caribbean.

It was this complex web of international relations that Caribbean and Latin American youth must perceive the world in which they live, he pointed out, and added that “we are fortunate that this is the kind of world that the OAS subscribes to and that we are here in this hallowed Hall of the Americas to deliberate on the proposals of the report of the Caribbean Commission on Youth Development. This event truly represents an eye on the future”.