SANTIAGO, Chile (CMC) — The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) says premiers and senior government officials from the Caribbean’s non-independent territories have called for sustained cooperation in advancing resilient and sustainable development and identifying common responses to the COVID-19 pandemic.
ECLAC said the call was made during a high-level meeting with its executive secretary, Alicia Bárcena, and the chair of the Commission, Costa Rica.
United Nations’ Resident Coordinators and intergovernmental organisations serving the Caribbean also participated, ECLAC said.
It said Bárcena participated in the “High-level meeting on the challenges faced by Associate Members of ECLAC in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” ahead of the fourth meeting of the Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development 2021.
In welcoming the Associate Members of ECLAC, Bárcena emphasised the commission’s commitment to “engage more meaningfully with all members of the ECLAC family towards sharing a comprehensive strategy for recovery post-COVID-19 in order to achieve the 2030 Agenda”.
“The pandemic presents us with an opportunity to redefine established norms and realign priorities, while driving necessary transformation towards a more resilient and dynamic development framework [and] has also underscored the fact that we need to extend a hand of support to all peoples; to all countries, regardless of legal or political status,” she said.
Bárcena noted that, as territories, ECLAC’s 14 associate members had more limited opportunities and scope for redress but faced all the profound development challenges experienced by the wider membership of the Caribbean.
She said that ECLAC’s Caribbean First Strategy was dedicated to promoting more focused attention on the unique challenges facing the small vulnerable countries and territories of the subregion, and that, over the past few years, ECLAC had steadfastly included its Associate Members in the work of the Commission, as well as regional forums.
Among other examples of ECLAC’s work, Bárcena highlighted the damage and loss assessments carried out by the Commission’s subregional headquarters for the Caribbean following Hurricanes Irma and Maria just over three years ago in Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, Sint Maarten, and the Turks and Caicos Islands.
ECLAC said the meeting was presided over by Andrew Fahie, Premier and Minister of Finance of the British Virgin Islands, in his capacity as vice-chair of the Caribbean Development and Cooperation Committee (CDCC) of ECLAC
The meeting was also attended by four Caribbean Member States of ECLAC, and UN Resident Coordinators serving the subregion, including Didier Trebucq for Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, Garry Conille for Jamaica, Bahamas, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands, and Marina Walter for Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten.
“This meeting is a decisive milestone marking ECLAC’s renewed engagement with its Associate Members and the tremendous efforts of Costa Rica as the current Chair of ECLAC to deepen the inclusion and participation of the Associate Members in the sustainable development of Latin America and the Caribbean,” Fahie said.
He added that the associate members’ involvement in ECLAC “is meant to help strengthen the resilience of their societies through support measures and participation in the regional processes designed to help achieve greater economic and social development”.
ECLAC said statements of associate member countries echoed that view and drew attention to the significant economic, social and environmental vulnerabilities, high exposure to extreme weather events and climate change, and low levels of resilience experienced by Caribbean territories – “factors which combined to paint a complex picture along with the unprecedented challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
