AMID RECURRING criticisms of and support for the Caribbean Community, it is quite rare for serious concerns to be expressed about what it could mean for us as citizens of ‘one Caribbean’ without having functioning mechanisms to sustain the twin-pillars of regional economic integration and functional cooperation.Truth is that with so much criticisms—via the media and otherwise—about real and imagined weaknesses of the operations of the 15-member Community, precious little thought is being given to what it could be mean for regional unity and the social and economic -achievements without CARICOM—warts and all.
No studies have been undertaken to provide relevant data to guide planning for the long-term future about the harmful consequences that could develop in our being unable, as people of ‘One Community’, to keep  ‘ss CARICOM afloat—and bearing in mind that the much canvassed new management architecture remains elusive.
It is not as if the decision-makers have done no thinking on this quite fundamental issue. I have been advised that “talking” about this challenging problem has been going on “for some time.” Well, as the cynics would remind, “talk is free.” It is the DOING the walk that matters.
Therefore, having recurring knocks on the doors of a few traditional donor supporters for financial resources, there came some good news this past week from the Georgetown-based Community Secretariat.
A high-level Forum on Statistics held in Grenada last month (May 26) had stimulated interest in preparation for a “data revolution” heavily focused on regional data collection and dissemination. The theme of the forum was “A Data Revolution for Sustainable Development.”
To avoid, by default, allowing ideas flowing from the Grenada Forum collapsing from official inaction, the Community Secretariat now has the opportunity that has now uniquely emerged
An official representative of the European Union told the Grenada forum of his preparedness to seek funding with a specific focus on “exploring the opportunity costs of not having a Caribbean Community in place.”
The offer to seek funding came from Head of the EU’s Cooperation Delegation to Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Suriname and the Dutch Overseas Territories, Ewout Sandker.
As stated by the Caricom Secretariat, Ambassador Sandker disclosed that the EU had had conducted, back in 1980, a study that “calculated the opportunity cost of not having a fully integrated market in Europe….The results were quite amazing with an enormous push to regional integration that provided a good opportunity for mobilising the private sector in Europe which saw the benefits they were not getting by not having a fully integrated market…”

Positive responses
I subsequently sought responses from both the CARICOM Secretary General, Irwin LaRocque, and the Community’s current Chairman, Vincentian Prime Minister, Dr. Ralph Gonsalves. Both welcomed the offer by the EU’s representative and pledged to do whatever necessary to help transform the gesture into reality.
Currently, the Secretariat has to cope with the challenges of an expenditure of some EC$100 million annually for the operational costs of CARICOM with its wide-ranging programmes and projects to sustain economic integration and functional cooperation.
The bulk of these expenditures are met from budgetary allocations primarily from Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Barbados and Guyana.
For their part, while the countries of the OECS sub-region had discovered from a study, some four years ago, that they had comparatively little to gain from CARICOM’s touted Single Market and Economy (CSME) they, nevertheless, remained committed to the project and fully embrace also the diversified functional cooperation programmes.
The immediate concern is to get the proposed project for a “Data Revolution for Sustainable Development” off the ground, and for the related funding identified by EU’s envoy, Sandker to become a reality.
Analysis by RICKEY SINGH