In approximately two months time the Caribbean and the wider world will know whether or not we have demonstrated a capacity to host a global event - to "world class standards" - so to speak. And if this utterance appears to be underpinned by a note of uncertainty then it is because with the commencement of the tournament now a matter of a few weeks away International Cricket Council (ICC) officials continue to express concern about the state of preparedness of the various regional venues.
That is as it should be. For while it is true that Cricket World Cup 2007 (CWC 2007) will be played in nine separate territories, it is, nonetheless, a single Caribbean event. Should any of the regional venues prove unable - for whatever reason - to host the games to which they are committed the region as a whole could face a fine of US$50M! Never has the possibility of failure collectively concentrated Caribbean minds more.
Cricket World Cup is the third largest global sports event - behind the Olympics and World Cup Football. More than two billion viewers around the world will witness CWC 2007 and the level of organization as much as the games themselves will attract viewer attention. The Caribbean has been feisty enough tp undertake what, for a clutch of developing and underdeveloped countries is, unquestionably, a Herculean task.
The ICC, it has to be said, appears convinced that the region's contribution to cricket over the years has more than earned it the right to host the world's largest cricketing event. But that is not the only reason. The ICC would also have been altogether aware of the marketability of West Indies cricket, the West Indian passion for the game and of the colour and creativity that the Caribbean will doubtless add to the event. This much was acknowledged by Mr. Malcolm Speed, Secretary of the ICC in a recent press release. The Caribbean, he said, had been awarded the 2007 Cricket World Cup because of the spirit of enjoyment that the region brings to the game and the festive atmosphere that surrounds cricket "in this part of the world".
An investment of US$500M in CWC 2007 certainly suggests that the ICC is backing the Caribbean to "deliver the goods," and in November 2003 former Jamaican Prime Minister Mr. Percival J. Patterson, then Chairman of the Caribbean Community signed a historic Host Venue Agreement (HVA) signalling the region's preparedness to embrace "the big time."
The narrative of how the Caribbean came to be charged with this awesome responsibility ought correctly to be attended by a description of the structures that the region was required to put in place if it was to undertake the task. To ensure that the region was adequately equipped to undertake this responsibility regional institutions like the Caricom Heads of Government Confer-ence were been complemented by a host of supporting ones.
Since the signing of the HVA in 2003 there has not been a single Heads of Government forum at which the preparedness of the region to host the event has not surfaced. At the recently concluded meeting of Caricom Heads of Government in St Vincent and the Grenadines the finalization of arrangements for the hosting of CWC 2007 was the first and by far the most important order of business. Some Heads of Government have been more vocal than others in articulating the significance of CWC 2007 for the region. Barbados Prime Minister Mr. Owen Arthur who will be host Head of Government for the finals of the tournament has continually pointed to the cultural boost that CWC 2007 will offer the region as well as the considerable injection of financial capital that the event promises for the tourism and services industries. Prime Minister of Grenada Dr. Keith Mitchell, himself an accomplished cricketer, has also been enthusiastically extolling the virtues of the region hosting CWC 2007.
Next to the Caricom Heads of Govern-ment forum the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) is the most important institution in the preparations for the event. The WICB has created the ICC/CWC WI 2007 Inc., which is charged with the responsibility for overseeing preparations for CWC 2007. The Chairman of the ICC/WC WI 2007 Mr. Chris Dehring, an investment banker, is a former WICB executive. At the local level the nine Caribbean host countries - Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, St. Kitts, Antigua, Grenada, St. Lucia, Guyana and St. Vincent and the Grenadines - have all established Local Organizing Committees (LOCs) that interface directly with CWC 2007. The LOCs have created a number of committees charged with specific responsibilities. In the case of Guyana, and, one expects, other regional host countries, there are committees responsible for transportation and communication, public relations and marketing, medical, health, emergency and security services. Other committees are charged with responsibility for cricket operations, local government and civil society and accommodation.
In the area of security the region has demonstrated an impressive level of cooperation, exchanging security information through a regional office serviced by the various Caricom governments. At the heart of the security responsibility is the Caricom sub-committee for CWC 2007 security, chaired by Deputy Prime Minister of Barbados, Ms Mia Mottley. The arrangements are underpinned by a regional security plan designed to address the challenges associated with the anticipated influx of tens of thousands of visitors for the event. While each host venue must conform to the regional security plan additional security support is forthcoming from the United States, Britain and Canada.
Cricket World Cup 2007 is an ICC event. The entire region therefore had to undertake to pass legislation - the Sunset Legislation - to ensure the protection of sponsors' interests. The region, for example, is obliged to prevent non-sponsors from profiting from CWC through "ambush marketing". The parliaments in each of the participating territories have enacted the Sunset Legislation.
As a region the Caribbean is only too well aware of the sense of apprehension and dilatoriness that has manifested itself in the pursuit of a single Caribbean "space" that allows for, among other things, the free movement of people within the region. Overnight, CWC has made this possible. With the passage by all of the Caribbean legislatures of the Caricom Single Visa Act and supporting legislation pertaining to customs and immigration, the region will, for the first time in its history and until June 2007, be a single immigration space.
One cannot help but think that the great regional statesmen of the previous era - Norman and Michael Manley, Eric Williams, Forbes Burnham, Cheddi Jagan, Vere Bird, Bradshaw, Marryshow et al - must be pleased, wherever they may be.The retention of these achievements beyond CWC would doubtless be even more pleasing to them.
One of the important features of globalization is the exceptional speed of communication and the ability to move money and resource - both human and financial - across space. CWC has ushered in manifestations of this phenomenon here in the Caribbean. Airline and hotel bookings are being made through services that were simply not available in the region on a comparable scale less than a decade ago. In Guyana, for example, Scotia Bank has put in place mechanisms to ensure that the thousands of expected visitors to this country for CWC can access financial services in their homeland and in other countries.
It is in this area - the area of delivering financial services - that the Caribbean region has revealed marked deficiencies. Those companies that have secured bids to provide particular CWC-related services including the marketing of tourist packages such as the selling of tourist packages are all external to the region. The CWC mascot, Molio - believe it or not - was designed by an Austrailan, a circumstance that may well account for his (the mascot's) distinctive lack of any clearly identifiable Caribbean physical features.
The region has also shown itself to be deficient in the availability of skilled persons to provide various specialized CWC services and most of those skills have had to be "imported" from outside the region.
But the Caribbean is known to be a resilient region and it not beyond the realm of possibility the CWC will open our eyes to critical common deficiencies and provide the impetus for the creation of a stronger, more unified region.