THE 23rd Meeting of the Council of Ministers of the Caribbean Forum of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (CARIFORUM) will take place on Thursday, March 17, at the Marriott Hotel in the Georgetown ward of Kingston.

Proceedings will be under the chairmanship of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Haiti, the Honourable Lener Renauld.

During this high-profile meeting, the Council of Ministers will consider matters which are high on its policy agenda with a view to advancing coordinated action on a range of policy objectives and priorities. In this regard, the meeting will focus on implementation and programming of the 10th and 11th European Development Fund (EDF) Caribbean Regional Indicative Programme (CRIP); the implementation of the CARIFORUM-EU Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA); the Future of the ACP, including the Eighth Summit of ACP Heads of State and Government, scheduled for May 31-June 1, 2016 in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea; and future ACP-EU relations in the post-Cotonou period.

The meeting will also focus on recent EU developments on financial services, and receive reports from the two CARIFORUM institutions — the Caribbean Export Development Agency and the Caribbean Regional Information and Translation Institute.

Guyana will be represented by Vice President and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carl Greenidge. CARIFORUM Secretary-General Irwin LaRocque will also be present.

The term CARIFORUM refers to the Caribbean Forum of ACP Group of States which are signatories of the Georgetown Agreement. This Agreement, signed in 1975, created the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP), which is made up of 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific states.

All participating states in CARIFORUM, with the exception of Cuba, are signatories to the ACP-EU Partnership Agreement, or “Cotonou Agreement”, and the EPA respectively. The CARIFORUM Members are: Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago.