CARICOM-Africa partnership making progress says CARICOM SG

GEORGETOWN, Guyana, July 21, 2022 - The partnership between CARICOM and Africa is making progress on some matters to which Heads committed at the first CARICOM-Africa Summit held in 2021, CARICOM Secretary-General, Dr. Carla Barnett, said Friday.

The Secretary-General was addressing an on-line  session of the annual Global Africa People-to-People Forum 2023. The session was themed ‘Building on visionary initiatives: Reflections on the inaugural CARICOM-Africa Summit.’

Then President of Kenya, His Excellency Uhuru Kenyatta, hosted the virtual, first CARICOM-Africa Summit on 7 September 2021, when Heads of Government of Africa and CARICOM met and engaged on matters of interest to them and determined how deeper cooperation could be achieved.

Trade and investment promotion, development finance, climate change, mass media, forging increased people-to-people contact and strengthening multilateralism were among the main items the Heads of Government addressed.

“CARICOM and Africa have made progress in trade and investment relations with strong support from Afreximbank. A formal partnership has been established, and the Caribbean headquarters is scheduled to be opened in Barbados in a few weeks’ time. This will allow the Community to access financing for trade promotion in a range of sectors. The possibility of utilising the Pan-African payment and settlement system as a method of intra-regional payments within the Caribbean is also being explored,” the Secretary-General said.

Last year, Barbados convened the first Africa-Caribbean Trade and Investment Forum, under the theme ‘One People. One Destiny. Uniting and Reimagining Our Future.’ Fifty African and 13 Caribbean countries were represented there. The second investment forum will be held in Guyana later this year.

The Secretary-General said that the inaugural CARICOM-Africa Summit mandated a Memorandum of Understanding between the Secretariats of CARICOM and the African Union to allow for ongoing technical dialogue. 

” We expect that the signing ceremony will take place in short order, setting the foundation for other commitments to be pursued,” she said.

She referred to other developments that have occurred including the increase in diplomatic representation

“It is evident that this partnership between CARICOM and Africa is making progress on some matters to which Heads committed at the first CARICOM-Africa Summit, but much more work needs to be done to establish concrete and consistent connections between the Community and Africa on several agreed areas, including:

• cooperation in mass media and information sharing between both Regions;

• establishing a CARICOM-Africa Commission;

• increasing contact between the people of our Regions, as direct engagement will enhance our appreciation for our history, our cultures and how we collaboratively chart our partnerships on matters that will redound to our benefit.  

All of this would be helped by convenient transportation links, which itself requires significant planning and investment,” she said at the Forum on Friday.

In the meantime, Kenya is lamenting the difficulties many African countries have to undergo in order to access visas for trade across boundries.

As a result, by the end of the year, Kenya will be abolishing visas for Africans across the continent who want to trade and do business in Kenya.