BONDING WITH THE PEOPLE ON CARICOM
By Rickey Singh
Guyana Chronicle
August 1, 2004
BONDING with the region's peoples by our governments on what the Caribbean Community is all about cannot be an ad hoc, hit-and-miss approach if desired success is to be achieved with the inauguration of the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME).
The more CARICOM governments endeavour to hasten the process to make a reality of a promised "single economic space", the more they are likely to encounter how challenging is the task they face to overcome years of accumulated cynicism and doubts about the practical benefits to flow and that our integration movement is much, much more than trade.
Sensitising, on a sustained basis, the Caribbean people to the imperatives of a single market and economy, our own final appellate court, free movement of workers, common currency, common travel document for intra-regional travel, dealing with unnecessary hassles by immigration and customs personnel, are issues that should have moved a long time ago onto the front-burner.
Yet, a number of our governments still reveal a lack of urgency in an economic integration movement now in its 31st year of existence.
Let's also accept that substantial segments of the region's media cannot escape blame either for the low level of awareness about CARICOM that persists in various member states.
The launch on July 5 of `Radio CARICOM’ as the electronic voice of the CARICOM Secretariat's communications division, raises new questions on the old problem of effectively communicating the policies and programmes of the Community to the peoples of the region.
'Radio CARICOM' is a pilot project involving four affiliated stations in Barbados, Belize, Grenada and St. Lucia. It basically offers a seven-minute broadcast package with hopes of broadening its base and listener-ship over a two-year period.
Very limited at present, it must be given a chance to establish its place as a new medium to help the information/education thrust on CARICOM and why it is so essential to have such an economic integration movement for our survival in an increasingly interdependent and globalised international environment - even if political integration remains taboo for many.
Information Flow
Writing recently in the Jamaica Observer on `Backing the talk with cash’, Claude Robinson correctly reminded the CARICOM political directorate of the urgent need to match with money their call for a comprehensive public information/education programme.
More than money, however, as I see it, is the need to unfold a public information and communications strategy that reflects clarity of ideas on how best to effectively market people-focused policies and programmes for a Community now hastening toward the realisation in 2008 of a CSME, served by new governing and administrative institutions and mechanisms.
We have been reminded that the Caribbean Broadcasting Union (CBU) had submitted for CARICOM's attention a UNESCO-funded plan to boost production and distribution of radio and television programmes, but it is yet to receive the desired response.
Entitled `A Media and Communication Plan in Support of the CCJ (Caribbean Court of Justice) and CSME (Caribbean Single Market and Economy), the CBU approach was made available to the CARICOM Secretariat on March 16 this year.
The study, according to CDBU President, Vic Fernandes, was partly inspired by suggestions from Prime Minister Kenny Anthony during his address to the CBU's 2004 annual general assembly.
The CBU itself has not escaped criticisms from regional media personnel for its own performance record in the production and distribution of suitable radio and television programmes as well as the proper utilisation by its affiliates of available regional materials.
I do not know how democratic was the process in formulating the CBU's plan in terms of regional endorsement to ensure the widest possible distribution and utilisation of production materials, once the moment arrives for implementation.
But it is also relevant to bear in mind that our keeping watch on what governments are doing - or not doing - should be blended with monitoring the policies and coverage of regional events and developments by the private media, especially the electronic media.
The Reality
The reality is that we function in a regional environment that continues to be inundated with foreign programmes; diminished flow of intra-regional news and information - the moreso since the collapse of what existed as an integrated wire and radio service of the Caribbean News Agency (CANA).
That regional communication vehicle has since been replaced by a fledgling Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) yet to make any significant impact, outside of sports coverage.
The former Jamaican journalist and now attorney-at-law and columnist, Ella Drummond-Hoyos, in reflecting her anxieties over effective media coverage of Cricket World Cup 2007, noted recently in the Barbados Daily Nation, that the merger of CANA and CBU into the CMC has resulted in an "under-subscribed and woefully inadequate attempt at a regional media house..."
Within CARICOM there are also Government Information Services that cry out for reviews of their structure and functioning to enable the spread of timely information and/or analyses that could either complement what originates from the Community Secretariat - or not being provided as a consequence of the Secretariat's own inadequacies.
I have often wondered why so many governments fail to simply make good use of the time slots to which they are entitled, on the basic licensing arrangements, for public education on radio and television networks, instead of being so anxious to blame established media enterprises for claimed deficient or absent coverage of news and information about CARICOM.
As far as the CARICOM Secretariat itself is concerned, a mandated review requested some years ago on its structure and functioning, remains a work in slow progress, and there persists within its internal operations the challenge to have an information/communication division to respond to new demands.
However, the willingness of Secretary General Edwin Carrington to make himself available to the media, as often as necessary, has proven quite helpful to efforts at communicating with the people via the region's media.
At their Grenada Summit last month, Heads of Government identified a budget of some US$72 million in expenditure over the next four years for the CSME, related studies and new mechanisms.
It is not known what percentage of that budget is to be devoted for a sustained public education/information programme via the media, seminars/consultations and town house-style meetings to help the process of making the CSME a "lived reality", as Barbados's Owen Arthur is fond of saying. We shall see!