President Bharrat Jagdeo has said that while solidarity among African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) nations is imperative, leaders from these counties must be clear in their demands to the international community.

He made the point on Monday at a dinner at Duke Lodge, Kingston, Georgetown, hosted by the government for the visiting ACP ministers and their delegations here for the 11th Special Ministerial Conference on sugar.

The President told his guests that though it is understandable they will have different positions on various issues, these should not open an avenue to create a division between them.

“We should have strong opinions expressed at these conferences; but at the end of the day we should have a single position that we can advocate strongly internationally.

“We have to create space for ourselves in international relations; no one is going to do this for us; we have to start fashioning the framework that we want in international economic and trade relations. That is the only way we are going to ensure our prosperity,” Mr. Jagdeo emphasised.

He urged ACP representatives too to shape their efforts in the context of the realities of the world today and even before the ravages of the global financial and economic crises.

The Head of State said that whatever plans individual countries may have to increase productivity, expand sugar production or diversify away from sugar, they will require money.

However, he said most of the ACP countries are limited in this area, some run large fiscal deficits and have many demands and very limited resources to meet them.

This situation, Mr. Jagdeo, stressed will be exacerbated given the current global economic meltdown, with many countries experiencing a reduction in revenue and people losing their jobs.

He said under these conditions, the priority of policy makers often tend to shift from long term action which is required for sugar survival and prosperity to many short term measures to alleviate the immediate sufferings of people, as it is more politically feasible.

“So we have to make sure that our case is strong so that even within our countries, we can demonstrate with our agreements that policy-makers must continue to invest in this vital industry for many of our economies,” the President put forward.

He encouraged ACP member states to ensure through their collective action, not only on sugar, but in their foreign policy, to actively participate in the ongoing debate to re-fashion the world of finances and economics.

“If we don’t participate in this debate, then we run the risk of a new financial architecture being created that will include some developing countries and their interests, but the large developing countries, the G-20, even though we are happy that the financial architecture will benefit from the voices of these counties – their interests are often dissimilar from those of small developing countries around the world,” Mr. Jagdeo observed.

He said the ACP nations have to ensure that in this debate, they create a sympathetic global financial architecture which will allow resources to flow in more countries for the needs of their people, including the sugar industry.

“We have to understand the place that we own in this world; if we don’t understand that and start carving out special niches through advocacy and solidarity in the global institutions, no matter how hard we work, we will always be up against this global frame that affects our prosperity,” the President noted.

On that score, he said ACP member states should not be ashamed to ask for special and differential treatments at the World Trade Organisation (WTO).