Integrated region critical, but still long way off

The acceleration of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Single Market and Economy (CSME) will be critical for a more inclusive, effectively-functioning and integrated region, says CARICOM Secretary General Dr Carla Barnett.

She said this was especially necessary given the various challenges facing CARICOM member states which included growing susceptibility to the impact of climate change as well as multiple and amplifying risks emanating from the global community including the ongoing war in Ukraine and the COVID-19 pandemic.

“These challenges cannot be met by countries acting alone. They demand and they are receiving collective action [and] collective attention from our community,” she said.

Barnett pointed to other risks such as supply chain disruption, food insecurity, cybersecurity and heightened anti-money laundering regulation.

Barnett said while a lot of work has been done over the years towards a full implementation of the CSME, there was still a long way to go and regional countries must work together to achieve it.

The CSME seeks to remove trade and professional restrictions on goods and individuals.

“There is a lot of work to do together to make CARICOM, including the CSME, a lived reality for all in the Caribbean Community. And as Owen Arthur would say around the CARICOM table when the discussion was done and the decision was taken, ‘let it be done’,” said Barnett.

Her comments came as she delivered the second Distinguished Owen S. Arthur Memorial Lecture at the Errol Barrow Centre for Creative Imagination on Monday night. She spoke on the topic: The Future of CARICOM: Charting a Vision for the Region’s Economic Advancement.

Barnett said she agreed with Arthur that Caribbean integration, and especially the CSME, was an essential driver of regional economic growth, social mobility, prosperity and sustainable development.

“He believed that integration strengthens the resilience of our region and reinforces our capacity to withstand the shocks and manage the risks emanating from the global economy and provides a basis for engaging on the international stage where our combined impact would be greater than the sum of our individual efforts,” said Barnett.

Outlining some of the challenges facing CARICOM, Barnett said in addition to not being able to maintain stable economic growth over the years, members were faced with high debt, limited fiscal space “and the skewing of public spending away from physical infrastructural development and towards a growing wage bill”.

“In all this, dynamism of the private sector has also lagged, and too often with a greater focus on commerce based on imports rather than production based on local inputs, even in tourism which has historically high import content,” she said.

She said the cost of the pandemic had threatened to erase economic gains of the region, access to medical supplies and adequate development financing.

“How do we address the challenges confronting member states through the CSME construct? Adapting the CARICOM integration framework to take account of rapidly changing national, regional and global imperatives requires visionary leadership, something our region has never had in short supply,” she added.

The Secretary General said while the implementation of the CSME had not kept pace with the vision of the architects of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, she was convinced that a momentum was building “towards implementing key outstanding commitments arising from the revised treaty and to shape a 21st century agenda that focuses on critical issues”.

“Much has been said about the implementation deficit in CARICOM and that the success of the CSME has been less than overwhelming,” she said. The discussions often ignored what has been achieved and did not consider the inherent challenges, she added.

“I repeat the words of Owen Arthur, ‘the CSME is a work in progress, regional decision-making must be complemented with national action given that CARICOM is a union of sovereign nations’. This I believe is where we need to focus our attention in order to accelerate implementation,” she said.

“There is recognition that there may be need to design or redesign regional initiatives as prevailing circumstances change. There is also recognition that regional integration cannot continue to move only when all are ready to move,” she added.

Barnett said: “We should not lose sight of the strides that the region has made towards forging a common market, a common identity, a single economic space and shared values. However, these achievements give no cause for complacency because there is a lot of work to do.”

She gave the assurance that the CARICOM Secretariat was doing what it could to advance the full implementation of the CSME through the use of more regional experts and collaboration with regional universities and research bodies.