GUYANA will be hosting the Second Meeting of the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative (CBSI) Commission on October 13 and 14 at the Guyana International Conference Centre (GICC), Liliendaal. This forum will engage participants from the Caribbean, United States of America (USA), and The Dominica Republic.
The CBSI was crafted bilaterally by CARICOM and the US Government subsequent to the decisions taken at the Summit of the Americas held in Trinidad and Tobago in April 2009.
At that Summit, United States President Barack Obama announced his country’s intent to pursue a security partnership with the Caribbean.
Since then, Governments of the Caribbean and the US have met on several occasions to jointly define and develop the goals and scope for the CBSI.
Governments of the Caribbean in April 2008, agreed to develop a common regional strategy and operational framework, and continued to embrace the US’s response to CARICOM’s call for greater cooperation in the area of regional security.
The partnership is expected to be an ongoing collaboration that draws upon and helps develop the capacity of the Caribbean to address common security-related challenges.
This bilateral agreement with CARICOM and the US will provide for capacity building in the financial investigative unit and the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) that would allow the tracking of illegal inflows and the use of ‘dirty money’ in the economy. Guyana’s Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee is set to give a keynote address at Thursday’s opening of the CBSI meeting.