Caribbean: The Caribbean Community- CARICOM is making efforts to promote and support the development priorities in collaboration with Latin American and other partners which have worked for development.
Dr. Armstrong Alexis, CARICOM Deputy Secretary-General, has presented an initiative under the new cycle of the Latin America a Caribbean Programme (LACRP), a sub-grouping of the global Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) this week.
The LACRP mainly focused on the areas such as productivity, social inclusion, governance, and sustainable development.
To uplift and work for the area of sustainable development, the Deputy Secretary-General informed that the CARICOM will work towards the interventions in Disaster Risk Reduction, compensation for loss and damage, and adaption in the last decade of the 2030 Development Agenda.
The CARICOM will also address and work for the uplift the sectors such as food security, management and conservation of the fisheries resources of the region, and enabling mechanisms to access climate financing.
While emphasizing the significance of the projects, Dr. Alexis said during the meeting said, “The Caribbean Community Secretariat (CCS) stand with its 15 Member States that will be used every opportunity in the formal negotiations and also the meetings of the high political relevance to uplift the work in the climate change”.
On the front of the increased productivity, the DSG identified the Inter-Ministerial Working Group of CARICOM on Agriculture that is made for targeting the reduction of the food import bill of the particular region. Under the programme, the food import bill has faced a reduction of 25 percent by the year 2025. The initiative will help to rebalance trade and save the region, which is more than US$2 billion a year.
He further outlined the decision of the CARICOM Heads to assist the lead responsibility for industrial policy to the President of Suriname and the region pursues regional and national industrial policies which would be guided by the principles of green growth and low-carbon development strategies.
So, the DSG assured CARICOM that they would strengthen social inclusion, which would mainly focus on human resource development, youth development and gender equity, health sector development, culture and community development, and crime and security.
