AMBASSADOR Irwin LaRocque, Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), has updated the Guyana Chronicle in an exclusive interview on progress achieved in relation to the ongoing reform process.

He said, “We have to be results-based: We have to be able to monitor what we are doing; how we are doing it; if we are getting there; and if not, why. The reform will do that.”

The reform is also expected to address the critical issue of implementation, including the roles and responsibilities of all participants in the Community architecture: namely the Conference of Heads of Government, the Ministerial Councils, bodies such as the Committee of Central Bank Governors and the Budget Committee, the CARICOM Secretariat and the institutions; as well as issues of governance, institutional and operational arrangements, and monitoring and evaluation mechanisms, La Rocque said.

LaRocque said CARICOM hosted on Thursday a meeting of the change drivers — representatives of the member states of CARICOM — to review the first draft of the strategic plan, the first working draft.

“The Change Facilitation Team has been recruited to assist with this process of change. The team is currently undertaking consultations in member states on the first ever Strategic Plan for the Community. The country consultations provide an opportunity for nationals of each member state and associate member state to influence the strategic direction of the Community,” he said.

PRIORITIES
“What we have set out to do is to draft a plan that will identify the priorities of the Community over the next five years, and then that will form the basis of reform of the Community in terms of how we are going to set about achieving the goals, and how we are going to streamline resources to get it done,” LaRocque said.

The common themes emerging include: the need to address economic recovery and growth as a core strategy over the next five years; the need to strengthen governance and decision-making arrangements, beginning with the Heads of Government Conference, to secure a more effective Community; the need to solve the challenges with inter-regional transport; the free movement of persons, including hassle free travel, as critical success factors for regional integration; the need to secure the region’s future through targeted interventions in agriculture for food security, energy security, education, health and ICT; the need to re-ignite the fire of regionalism among our Caribbean people through shared understanding and building of a sense of Community; the need to communicate fully and consistently with the people on the issues of integration; and the need to embrace and optimise the diversity of the people and member states that lend to our strength as a unified region.

He added that a substantial part of the reform process is a reform of the Secretariat itself. “We are seeking to improve the efficiency in how we do what we do,” the Secretary General said.

LaRocque noted that, in addition to the overall reform process, CARICOM is also looking at reforms at the member states’ level. He said, “The implementation of issues we focus on is done at the member states’ level.”

The Secretary General also highlighted the support of the people of CARICOM member states during consultations on the reform process. LaRocque noted that the consultations on the strategic plan are not starting with a blank slate; rather, they are taking from approved policies and programmes as a starting point. The policies include: the 2007 Single Development Vision; the Strategic Plan for Regional Economic Development, on which there was close collaboration between the Secretariat and UWI; the priorities articulated by Heads of Government themselves at their retreat held in Guyana in May 2011; and approved policies and action plans in a range of areas, such as agriculture, energy, industry, security, health, youth, ICT and Climate Change, to name a few.

These policies and programmes are then taken in the context of the rapidly changing global environment that impacts our member states to chart the way forward, he said. “What is coming out of this exercise is the synergies coming out of our work, our change drivers, the people in the Community and our member states and associate member states….The people of CARICOM support CARICOM,” He said.

 VISION
Expounding on the vision for CARICOM’s future, at the Thirty-seventh UNESCO General Conference in Paris, France, in November, LaRocque said: “It would be a Community in which all are involved. There would be a system of meaningful consultations from which a free flow of ideas emanate, allowing for the distillation of the best and most practical. This would help to capture the imagination and interest of all, and allow the people to seize a stake in the integration process – allowing for the sense of ‘being Caribbean’ to take precedence over all else. It would also lead to more efficient implementation of decisions, having had the benefit of the widest possible input.

“It would be a Community in which regional plans and policies are harmonised with national plans and policies. The national would become regional and the regional national.
We would have deepened the integration process, with a single economic space (being) a reality, and a closer convergence of economic policies.”

He maintained that the focus is the creation of a Caribbean Community in which the people have “tangible proof that integration is working for them”, and that their domestic space extends from Belize in the west to Barbados in the east, from Suriname in the south to The Bahamas in the north, and all in between. “This would mean being able to travel freely, change their currency, and have the families who move treated, to all intents and purposes, as citizens of their adopted country,” LaRocque said.

He added that his vision for CARICOM will see: goals achieved from frank discussions and resolution of concerns; foreign policy co-ordination strengthened as a means of achieving our development goals; the embrace of CCJ by all member states in both its jurisdictions, as a step towards completing the circle of sovereignty for the region; a single CARICOM ICT space in which a telephone call from Port-of-Spain to Kingston is a local call and broadband is ubiquitous and easily accessible to all; and the achievement of sustainable growth and development, where there is confidence and belief in where we can go and what we can achieve together, where its institutions are seen as reliant and integral to achieving our goal of a Community for all.

“I intend to deliver a secretariat that is strategic in outlook and (is) efficient, effective and responsive in serving the needs of its member states and providing leadership to the integration arrangements,” LaRocque assured.
Written By Vanessa Narine