CARICOM Leaders Gather in Saint Lucia as Caribbean Confronts Mounting Global, Regional Challenges
GROS ISLET, Saint Lucia , July 6 (IPS) - Caribbean leaders are meeting in Saint Lucia for their annual summit, confronting a convergence of global and regional challenges ranging from rising living costs and climate change to crime, food security and geopolitical tensions.
The 51st Regular Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the regional organisation that promotes economic integration, coordinates foreign policy and fosters cooperation among its 15 member states, runs until Wednesday.
Leaders are expected to discuss regional security, climate resilience, economic integration, trade, migration, food and water security and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence.
The country’s Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre assumed the grouping’s rotating chairmanship.
He said he was taking over at a time of “profound uncertainty”, with Caribbean people feeling the effects of international instability in their daily lives.
“Our people feel these pressures every day,” Pierre said during the conference’s opening ceremony, citing the rising cost of food and energy, worsening climate impacts and growing concerns about crime and public safety.
He told the gathering that his six-month chairmanship would focus on ensuring regional integration delivers tangible benefits for Caribbean citizens rather than remaining confined to official meetings and declarations.
“Our people are asking a serious and legitimate question: What more can CARICOM do for me?” Pierre said. “We must make integration work for the ordinary citizen.”
The Saint Lucian leader outlined priorities that included strengthening regional unity, advancing the CARICOM Single Market and Economy, improving food and nutrition security, addressing violent crime and illegal firearms, expanding transportation links, increasing access to climate finance and developing a coordinated regional approach to artificial intelligence.
He also called for stronger support for young people, women, people with disabilities and other groups that have historically faced barriers to opportunity.
Pierre renewed CARICOM’s call for climate justice, arguing that Caribbean nations contribute little to global greenhouse gas emissions while bearing a disproportionate share of climate impacts. He urged the international community to expand access to climate finance, loss-and-damage funding and debt relief mechanisms that better reflect the vulnerability of small island developing states.
The summit comes as Caribbean governments continue to navigate the economic effects of global conflicts, supply chain disruptions and inflation while confronting increasingly severe hurricanes, prolonged droughts and other climate-related disasters that disproportionately affect small island developing states.
CARICOM Secretary-General Carla Barnett said the region’s founders envisioned cooperation as a practical response to external pressures.
“Then, as now, external factors and influences put at risk the vision of regional integration,” Barnett said, adding that leaders must accelerate implementation of long-standing regional commitments, particularly within the CARICOM Single Market and Economy.
Barnett pointed to progress in expanding the free movement of skilled workers, increasing agricultural production under the region’s food security strategy and strengthening international partnerships but said much work remains to implement agreed regional measures fully.
Outgoing CARICOM Chairman, Prime Minister of St Kitts and Nevis, Terrance Drew said his tenure reinforced the importance of unity during a period marked by global uncertainty, climate threats and questions about regional cohesion.
“The question is no longer whether CARICOM will survive,” Drew said. “The question now is how we strengthen CARICOM for the next generation.”
He said Caribbean governments had continued working together on food security, climate resilience, regional security, Haiti, reparatory justice and international diplomacy despite mounting external pressures.
Founded by the Treaty of Chaguaramas on July 4, 1973, CARICOM promotes economic integration, coordinated foreign policy and functional cooperation among its member states. The organisation now comprises 15 member states and seven associate members and works across areas including climate change, agriculture, education, health, security, trade, transportation and sustainable development.
This year’s meeting is being held under the theme ‘People, Partnerships, Prosperity: Promoting a Secure and Sustainable Future’. Leaders will continue discussions through July 8 before issuing a final communiqué expected to outline decisions on regional security, climate resilience, economic integration and other priorities identified during the conference.
IPS UN Bureau Report
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