DURING A three-day official visit to Barbados last week, new Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community, Irwin LaRocque, spent more than an hour in an informal no-holes-barred discussion on problems and challenges facing the region’s 38-year-old economic integration movement, on the understanding that he could not “commit” ANY of the Community’s Heads of Government. The Dominica-born economist succeeded, less than four months ago, the long-serving Edwin Carrington of Trinidad and Tobago, after first serving as Assistant Secretary-General for Trade and Economic Relations since 2005 at the Georgetown-based Community Secretariat.
He met with media representatives at the office of the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) on Tuesday following  a session held with the Prime Minister of Barbados, Fruendel Stuart, who has lead responsibility among CARICOM Heads of Government for CSME-readiness arrangements. Aspects of the CSME were placed ‘on hold’ earlier this year, in the wake of recurring failures in implementation of programmes.
LaRocque was to reveal quite an agreeable mood for questioning as well as sharing of ideas that could help improve management functions at the CARICOM Secretariat.
These would include changing the formats of inter-sessional and annual meetings of Heads of Government; improvement in governance so the region’s political directorate could better expedite implementation of policies and programmes; and new approaches in information and communication flows to better sensitise the public on successes and shortcomings of the economic integration movement.
The Secretary-General agreed that changes may have to occur in a number of areas, and while he could not now go into details on some fundamental adjustments that may have to be pursued, the very format of Heads of Government summits and ministerial meetings should also be reviewed.
He was told during the ‘discussion’, for which the CMC’s Port-of-Spain-based Wire Service Editor, Peter Richards and this columnist were among participating journalists, of the need for more healthy exchanges between the region’s media and the decision-makers of the Community.

Different approaches
Suggestions were made for more regular — possibly one or two-day meetings — of Heads of Government, as the occasion demands (with European Union and G-2O summits as possible guides); and a serious overhaul of the ceremonial opening of the current annual CARICOM Summit that currently involves hours of addresses and ceremonies and at periods most inconvenient for both the media and the region’s peoples.
Also, that there should be new approaches for vigorous and relevant communication arrangements to more effectively sensitise the region’s peoples to the problems, achievements and challenges of CARICOM.
In this context, the Secretary-General agreed to take on board suggestions offered for separate meetings with the owners and decision-makers of both the private and public sector media  to develop a new partnership in the information flow  as well as critical assessments of the progress and shortcomings of CARICOM.
An effective monitoring mechanism seems needed to help governments in ensuring the implementation of decisions unanimously taken but too often being ignored.
This syndrome, as the Secretary-General realises, contributes to breeding cynicism and disenchantment across the region where, detractors apart, there are stakeholders keen on helping the region’s governments to make a realisation of the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) that used to be touted as CARICOM’s ‘flagship’ project, rooted in the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas.
Now, in the absence of any serious monitoring mechanism to determine who are paying heed to implementation of decisions, official rhetoric about ‘commitment’ cannot conceal the foot-dragging syndrome that militates against advancing major areas in both economic integration and functional cooperation.

Information and Communication
The continuing failure to meet by ministers responsible for information and communication, and the virtual non-engagement by leading government and media officials to devise better ways to inform and sustain interest in member jurisdictions in major areas of economic integration, functional cooperation and cultural and environmental issues, also surfaced as matters noted for consideration and action.
Mention was made of the keen interest once displayed by governments in information and communication policies and programmes that had resulted in the inauguration of the Caribbean News Agency (CANA).
Comments then followed on the apparent comparative lack of interest by governments and leading media enterprises to enable the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) to overcome crippling financial disadvantages to provide more needed intra-regional flows of media information, news and views.
At the same time, efforts need to be pursued to influence a change in the habit of government information agencies from being so focused on domestic news bulletins to the virtual exclusion of any development of regional interest as emanating from the Community Secretariat.
Should the information and communication networks of the member governments change their perspectives and cooperate better in the interest of having a more informed public on CARICOM affairs, it was felt that this, in turn, could help motivate more positive approaches by leading private sector media enterprises of the region to ensure improved coverage of important developments and events.
In the spirit of Tuesday’s candid discussion, the CARICOM Secretary General agreed to consider initiatives for dialogues with governments, private corporate interests such as One Caribbean Media (OCM) — of which the Nation Publishing Company and the Caribbean Communications Network (CCN) are part — as well management of the CMC.
As LaRocque seeks to remove, hopefully, the sloth in implementation of CARICOM decisions, we can only hope that better days will be forthcoming for CARICOM.
At his meeting with LaRocque the previous day, Prime Minister Stuart had pointed to a “need to put people’s ideals and passions back into the regional trust…” According to the Community Secretariat, the Barbadian leader had cited, as examples, CARIFESTA, West Indies cricket and the University of the West Indies.
Well, from my humble understanding, that would also require a renewal of commitment and more positive approaches by ALL member governments of CARICOM, as well as more affirmative actions and less rhetoric from the region’s private sectors.