1 week ago
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The 50th Regular Meeting of the Conference of CARICOM Heads of Government officially wrapped up today in St. Kitts and Nevis, with regional leaders highlighting the historic nature of the gathering. During a closing media conference this morning, CARICOM Chair and Prime Minister of St. Kitts and Nevis, Dr. Terrance Drew, reflected on the milestone meeting and thanked Jamaica’s Prime Minister Dr. Andrew Holness for steering the Community over the past six months. Drew also acknowledged the continued leadership transition within the regional body, noting the ongoing collaboration among member states as the chairmanship rotates. In his remarks, Dr. Drew underscored what he described as a historic moment for the Community.
Terrance Drew, Prime Minister, St.Kitts and Nevis: “This week every member state and associate member was represented by their head of government or a designated head of delegation. In fact we had 20 of 21 heads of Government of member states and associate members. We had all of the heads from all of the full members of CARICOM. This was a conference of action and one of the things that we did is that we set it up in such a way that the heads could have spent a larger amount of time together dealign with the most critical issues affecting the community and as a result of that you would see the number of outcomes that we would have had. That would have positive impact on the community and our people within this region of course. So for the many things that I mentioned, and I would not reiterate them, it is obvious that a lot of work was covered, a lot of grounds were covered and a lot of things were achieved that as they implemented we would recognize how important that it is. I think if you were to look at for example the matter with University of the West Indies something that I think moving step closer to indigenize that institution that is a significant achievement for the region I think in my own estimation. Looking at the mater of Haiti and having the new Prime Minister of Haiti here and hearing his presentation and from the EPG and their report on the advancement of things in Haiti and leading of course thinking about having an election somewhat later this year with concrete achievements being seen I think that is critically important and would show how CARICOM would have contributed significantly to that. And so I can go one by one to show all the other things that we would have achieved but I say one of the things that we would have achieved was to get all of the heads of the full members here along with 90% of the associate members so that we could have discussed and talked about those challenging issues that any integration movement would face. So I think that we would have had a significant amount of action of course of being more united than we came if there was a question about our togetherness at all.”
Dr. Drew noted that history was made with every CARICOM head of government in attendance for the landmark 50th meeting, signaling strong regional unity at a critical time for the Caribbean. Belize was represented at the summit by Prime Minister John Briceño and Minister of Foreign Affairs Francis Fonseca. Regional leaders spent the past several days discussing key priorities including security, food resilience, climate change, and economic cooperation. The meeting closed with commitments to deepen regional integration and strengthen collective responses to shared challenges facing CARICOM member states.
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