Plus and minus in CARICOM
-- New `wind of change’ for single economy
By Rickey Singh
Guyana Chronicle
February 18, 2007
THEIR own rhetoric and misplaced enthusiasm may have contributed to the cynicism abroad in the region about the CARICOM single economy enterprise our Community Heads of Government have for so long been pledging to make a reality -- at the least before the first half of the first decade of the 21st century.
A quick reading of communiques issued after special, regular meetings and annual summits of Heads of Government, even within the past three years, on fundamental features of the architecture of the envisaged Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) would, however, reveal the extent to which pledges and optimism have not kept pace with implementation of policies and programmes.
But a fresh wind of change in official political attitudes appears to be blowing across the 15-member, 33-year-old regional economic integration movement with a coherent action programme linking decisions from last week's 18th Inter-Sessional Meeting in the Vincentian capital Kingstown with the 28th regular annual CARICOM Summit in Bridgetown.
Hitherto missing in action was what the leaders eventually came to embrace and are now seemingly pursuing with much more vigour, coordination, harmony and commitment -- a single, or shared "development vision" that would translate pledges into the reality of a single economic space occupied by one rainbow CARICOM family.
This time the difference -- as emerged at their Kingstown Inter-Sessional last week -- seems a more methodical approach in prioritising of policies and programmes that, contrary to the heady days of "CSME soon come", could, hopefully, blossom into CARICOM's single economy in 2015.
Consequently, there is to be a more enlightened sequencing of implementation schedules of policies and programmes with the expectation that the long promised "one economy for one people" would indeed be celebrated in 2015 -- nine years after its single market component was finally inaugurated in 2006.
In this context, it could be understood what the current chairman of CARICOM, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves meant when he pointed out in his inspiring opening address at the Inter-Sessional Meeting why 2008 is the community's "date with destiny".
The primary instrument for achieving the single economic space -- (an experiment with a common domestic space in intra-regional movement is currently on, motivated by Cricket World Cup 2007) -- would be a guiding working document unanimously approved at the Kingstown meeting.
It is a report by Dr. Norman Girvan, one of the region's most distinguished economists and former Secretary General of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS), entitled "Towards a Single Economy and a Single Development Vision".
Based on extensive research, the comprehensive work, done in collaboration with the CARICOM Secretariat and a Special Task Force on the Single Economy, the report was given the unequivocal green light for action at the Kingstown Inter-Sessional.
The Prime Minister of Barbados, Owen Arthur, was most happy to announce their unanimity and commitment to implementation schedules, as he smilingly waved at a media briefing the Girvan-crafted report.
He hailed it as a seminal work and proof of the member governments’ determination to make a reality of a single economy with a shared single development vision.
Arthur's expressed happiness should be well understood. He is recognised by not only his CARICOM colleagues but stakeholders of the private sector, labour movement and civil society for his "tremendous and consistent personal efforts" -- as often expressed at regional meetings -- in the leadership roles played over the years as head of the Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee on the CSME.
The "Girvan report", aspects of which will be subsequently reported, highlights the strategies to be pursued in key sectors for achieving the ultimate objective of the CSME -- such as the economic, social, environmental and governance dimensions.
The so-called "governance dimension" has been and remains one of the more elusive aspects of the framework within which the single economy is to be achieved.
Although the difficulties in overcoming entrenched parochial fears, suspicions and prejudices should not be ignored, it so happens that, for all the plenty talk and public posturing, a new form of effective governance of the community's business, with enabling legal authority derived from a frequently alluded to Single CARICOM Act, approved by national parliaments, is yet to even reach the initial stage of a draft.
Not surprisingly, therefore, in the absence of this vital piece of legislation, there are community leaders who continue to vacillate on the crucial issue of establishment of a CARICOM Commission, empowered with executive authority, for more relevant administration of the community's expanding functions with the emerging single economy at its centre.
From The West Indian Commission's "Time for Action" report of 1992, to the latest recommendation in support of the idea of a CARICOM Commission, located in the report of a Technical Working Group (TWG) headed by Dr. Vaughan Lewis, and approved at last week's conference in Kingstown, double-speak and/or vague assurances continue to be the experience when it comes to moving in the direction of establishment of an empowered governance mechanism.
Try, for example, to answer the question of precisely when a CARICOM Commission will be established -- before or after “destiny year” 2008, from reading the following statement in the communique released on "governance of the Community":
"...The conference also agreed to re-establish the Inter-Governmental Task Force, to work in collaboration with the Legal Affairs Committee and a Sub-Committee of the (Lewis-led) Technical Working Group towards the elaboration of a Draft Protocol, with a view to recommending the requisite amendments to the (CARICOM) Revised Treaty..."
If the word game has left readers guessing about the extent of commitment to and timing for governance with a much-discussed empowered administrative mechanism in the form of a CARICOM Commission, then perhaps that may well have been the intention as the political merry-go-round continues on this aspect of CARICOM affairs.
There is also surprising slow movement in coordinated regional action on the wide-ranging recommendations on our health sector as outlined in the seminal work of the high-level Caribbean Commission on Health and Development, headed by the distinguished Sir George Alleyne who had circulated a 135-page report back in December 2005.
Now, however, as it is with regional energy and agriculture development, it appears that the community leaders have arrived at a more definitive course of action leading up between now and their regular annual summit this year which is scheduled for Barbados in early July.
In many ways the Barbados Summit could prove a watershed in the way forward for the now agreed implementation phases of a "Single Economy and Single Development Vision".
We shall see as, hopefully, the private sector and civil society which have been targeted for integral involvement, including a series of structured region-wide consultations get on board -- not only with their complaints but ideas for what can best be done -- together.