Georgetown : Guyana’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett has assumed the chairmanship of Council for Foreign and Community Relations (COFCOR), which is currently convening its 17th Meeting at the Guyana International Conference Center (GICC), Liliendaal.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, the Minister lauded the stewardship of outgoing chairman, Foreign Affairs Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Winston Dookeran. She said that this 17th Meeting comes at a time when the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is undertaking an introspection of how it can strengthen the systems and processes of the integration movement.
Key to this process is the development of a strategy that will address the areas to which the Community should give priority as it seeks to maximise its human and financial resources.
“Our focus will be on the conduct of the Region’s foreign policy in a changing global environment. I am indeed looking forward to our own introspection, at the end of which I hope we will arrive at clear and practical actions that would reflect our adaptation in a rapidly changing world, and more importantly an approach that would lead to even greater coordination,” she said.
Minister Rodrigues-Birkett underscored the need for countries to advance the climate change negotiating process to meet the 2015 deadline for a global agreement on climate change.
She said that given the Region’s vulnerability, individual states need to ensure that they participate in upcoming international forums that will be addressing this issue so as to continue to build partnerships and seek support from allies and friends.
She also spoke of the Post 2015 Development Agenda and said that as co-facilitator with Norway, Guyana will do its best to represent CARICOM’s position by advocating that financing for development must contribute to the effective mobilisation of resources from all sources; including public and private, domestic and international and to the creation of an enabling global policy environment for the realisation of development objectives.
“CARICOM needs to remain fully engaged and to ensure that our priorities are duly reflected in the relevant outcomes,” the Minister said.
In terms of the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), some member states are constrained by high levels of debt and graduation from concessional financing and development aid, based on an arbitrary categorisation of small developing states as upper middle income countries using GDP per capita.
She said that the Region must continue to advocate for international financial institutions to review this “unacceptable categorisation”.
Minister Rodrigues-Birkett said that the foreign trade agenda is a top priority. In this regard, the current arrangements with traditional trading partners have presented the region with serious challenges relating to reciprocity, stringent conditionalities of reduced development support and growing non-tariff barriers.
Member states continue to make the dedicated effort to implement the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Europe. However, this is becoming a demanding task for small developing economies in the region.
Moreover, market access under the EPA is faced with many hurdles for fledgling business communities in the region including tedious visa requirements. She noted that while for many Member States the United States remains the largest trading partner in terms of value and volume of trade, this should not be taken for granted.
“We cannot assume that the current arrangements will remain sufficient and resilient. We have to engage and pursue initiatives to improve trade, including through the maximum use of the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement,” the Foreign Affairs Minister said.
CARICOM has not only sought to strengthen its relations with traditional partners, but has also pursued the formation of new alliances. These include: Brazil, Ecuador, New Zealand and Spain, whose foreign ministers will be engaging in dialogue at this meeting.
In terms of foreign policy coordination, the new COFCOR Chair said that, “we must continue our efforts to maximise our 14 voices and 14 votes. We must be prepared at times, to sacrifice short-term individual gains in order for the overall region to benefit on the longer term… the fact that we have seen an increase in the number of Governments wanting to dialogue with us as a group, demonstrates not only that they see us as a group, but also that our united positions have not gone unnoticed.”
CARICOM’s Secretary General, Dr. Irwin LaRoque said that this forum allows Ministers of Foreign Affairs to look back and take stock of the multiple activities undertaken by the Community in the promotion and protection of its interests.
He informed that this review and analytical exercise take on particular importance this year as the final touches are being put to the Five-Year Strategic Plan for the Caribbean Community which will be presented to the Heads of Government at their Conference in July.
The plan will lay out the Community’s priorities over the period as it seeks to focus on a few practical and achievable goals.
Meanwhile, COFCOR’s outgoing chairman, Winston Dookeran said that in constructing the kind of future that the Caribbean people deserves, the external voices of the region have become dimmer than, and therefore there is need for a new form of diplomacy.
He said that one of the main challenges has to do with the structure as opposed to the process of integration; noting that in order to establish a new process, a new structure will be required.
Dookeran added that based on dialogue and reflections over the last year, it has become clear that there is a gap in connectivity.
“…we in the region must not be left behind, by not creating a new convergence process consistent with the global convergence processes taking place in the world…a new diplomacy therefore is what is required, and we must start first and foremost with that diplomacy within our region,” he said.
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