PRESIDENT Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali is currently attending the 33rd Inter-Sessional Meeting of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). The meeting is being held in Belize under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister of Belize John Antonio Briceño and will last for two days, commencing March 1, 2022.

The meeting is taking place at a time when there are some major developments taking place in the Region and the world at large, which could have far-reaching consequences for member states. Among these are the continuing adverse effects of climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic and the tense global environment following the invasion by the Russian Federation of Ukrainian territory.

Both the Government of Guyana and the CARICOM Secretariat have issued separate statements condemning the Russian invasion and calling for an immediate and peaceful resolution of the conflict within the framework of international law; respect for the principles of sovereignty; non-interference in the affairs of another sovereign state and the prohibition on the threat or use of force and the peaceful resolution of disputes, which formed the bedrock of the community.

According to a release from the CARICOM Secretariat, the opening session will feature remarks by the CARICOM Secretary-General Dr Carla Barnett and several other leaders, including outgoing Chairman Gaston Browne, Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda and CARICOM Chairman, Prime Minister Briceno.

President Dr Mohamed Irfaan Ali will join with several other leaders on the second day of the conference which will focus on a number of pressing issues facing the community, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the existential threats of climate change, both of which continue to pose a serious challenge to the Region. Only recently, neighbouring Brazil experienced a serious mudslide which resulted in the deaths of several people including damage to homes and property. The most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that many of the impacts of global warming are now simply irreversible, even as it suggested that a brief window of opportunity still exists to avoid the very worst. According to the IPCC report, humans and nature are being pushed beyond their abilities to adapt and over 40 per cent of the world’s population are “highly vulnerable” to climate change.

These are indeed alarming findings, especially for low-lying island states in the Caribbean and elsewhere and no doubt these will be high on the agenda of CARICOM leaders.  President Irfaan Ali during his address to world leaders at the 26th Conference of Parties (COP) in Glasgow, Scotland, made the point that climate change does not discriminate, even as the effects are more severe on the poorest and most vulnerable nations, especially Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and Low-Lying Coastal States.

Other challenges facing the CARICOM Region include the COVID-19 pandemic which still continues to take a toll on the economic and social life of member states, even though there has been some progress in terms of vaccination rates and the number of people affected by the virus. Guyana has a vaccination rate of over 80 per cent of the adult population, which compares well with other countries in the Region, but with the emergence of new variants and the possibility of new variants emerging, nothing can be left to chance.

President Ali has said that the immediate task of containing, mitigating and eventually eradicating the coronavirus must not force us to ignore the challenges of protecting the environment and the need for collective action.

Other challenges faced by CARICOM include finding ways to reduce the high food-import bill of the Region by boosting agricultural production, in which Guyana is now playing a leading role. President Ali has committed Guyana as a member of CARICOM to enhance the regional community.

“I have made it very clear that our prosperity will be shared with the Region and that the Region will benefit from a stronger Guyana,” the President assured.

Guyana, with its emerging new status as an oil-producing nation does have a role to play in advancing the regional integration movement and in terms of regional security, including food security. There is still much work to be dome in the area of the creation of a Single Market and Economy (SME), but with determined effort and a single-minded approach, it is only a question of time before the objectives of CARICOM as envisaged by its leaders will be fully realised.