AGRICULTURE and disaster risk reduction will take centre stage as President Donald Ramotar and Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and Mexico gather today in Merida, Mexico, for their Third Summit. The summit will be preceded earlier in the day by a meeting of the foreign ministers.

According to a release from the regional grouping, Mexico has indicated its interest in extending its Mesoamerica Project to allow CARICOM members to benefit from its Infrastructure Fund, established in 2011, to promote investments in the areas of human development, sustainable development, energy, telecommunications, trade facilitation, natural disaster prevention and transportation.
The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) serves as the fund’s manager for the Technical Cooperation Programme (TCP), and the Mexican subventions for the programme are deposited to the bank’s Special Development Fund.
The TCP, over the period, was characterised by the building of collaborative relations between CARICOM technical institutions and their counterparts in Mexico. Relations have been developed, for example, between the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) and CENAPRED, the Mexican disaster preparedness and management agency, and between the Caribbean Meteorological Institute (CMI) and the INTA, the Mexican Institute for Water technology.
In 1974, Mexico became the first country to establish a Joint Commission with CARICOM to work on areas of co-operation. Formal technical co-operation arrangements have been in place since 1990, and three phases have already been completed in the areas of transportation, language training, agriculture and agro-industrial development, maritime education, disaster preparedness and management, and agro-meteorology and climatology. (GINA)