BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) — The first ever African-Caribbean Community (Caricom) summit got underway virtually on Tuesday with the 15-member regional integration grouping outlining proposals for closer collaboration between the two regions.
The summit is being held under the theme “Unity Across Continents and Oceans: Opportunities for Deepening Integration”.
Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne, who is also the Caricom chairman, told the summit it was important to establish structures of cooperation to promote their mutual socio-economic interests; increasing investment and trade, and people to people exchanges between Africa and the Caribbean.
“We should resist being pushed to the margins of international decision-making and collaborate on decisions to restructure the global financial architecture, on global taxation, derisking, climate change and reparations, among others.”
Browne said that the success with the African Union’s Medical Supplies platform (AMSP), which provided life-saving vaccines to the Caribbean people has shown that we have the capacity to cooperate and collaborate.
“Colleagues, we have it within our power to demand change in the international system and to fight for it, and to make it happen. But only if we act harmoniously.”
Browne said that between the nations of the African Union and Caricom, “we are a population of approximately 1.4 billion people, with great natural and wealth-creating resources including oil, gas, agriculture, minerals, forestry, tourism, fisheries and much more.
“We are the suppliers of vital commodities to the global community, and a strong market for the goods and services of Europe and North America. Additionally, together we have the voting power of 69 nations in the United Nations and all its subsidiary organisations, including the World Trade Organization. We have global bargaining power. But only if we use it effectively.”
Browne said that as a result he was proposing four areas for cooperation including nominating September 7 every year as “African Caribbean Day”.
He said there is also the need to create a Forum of African and Caribbean Territories and States (FACTS), managed jointly by the Secretariats of the African Union and Caricom.
“Third, every year hereafter, we should repeat this Africa-Caricom summit on this day, September 7th, to analyse the global situation and our place within it; to discuss initiatives and programmes; and to authorise joint actions.
“Fourth, we should charge the Secretariats of the African Union and Caricom to present to us within six months of today, for approval at our meeting next year, the Founding Charter and a Memorandum of Operation of our Forum, including proposals to overcome existing obstacles to trade and investment,” Browne said, adding that consideration should also be given to a multi-lateral air services agreement, and an investment protection, as well as, a double taxation agreement between African and Caricom states.
“Should we agree to establish these pillars of collaboration, I urge both Secretariats not to over-bureaucratise these initiatives. We must keep our arrangements lean and efficacious,” Browne said, urging the leaders of the countries of the two regions to “create the pathways of accord between Africa and the Caribbean — an accord worthy of our historic and contemporary struggles to overcome the legacy of racism, colonialism, exploitation and global inequities”.
“We are the branches of a single tree created from the same roots and as Caribbeaners, we look forward to that welcomed return as repatriated Africans. Let us, as that one tree, reach to the skies together — strong, resilient, and unshakeable,” the Caricom chairman said.
Browne said that the summit is taking place from the premise that Europe underdeveloped Africa and left the Caribbean undeveloped.
“Today, through their control of the global financial, economic and trading system, the major European nations and their North American allies, continue to hold Africa, the Caribbean and other developing countries in a trap of underdevelopment.
“Let us be clear: There was never trade between Africa and the Caribbean. There was trade between Europeans using African people as a commodity. They traded. We were traded.”
Browne said that previous generations of African and Caribbean people could do little to alter that situation; although, through their many rebellions in the Caribbean and battles of resistance in Africa, they struggled valiantly, paying with their lives.
“Our generation should not allow these systems that control us, that constrain us, and capture us to continue. This is starkly illustrated by the global control by a few rich countries of the production and distribution of vital vaccines to suppress the COVID-19 pandemic.”
He said that whereas, 70 per cent of the European Union and almost 60 per cent of North Americans are fully vaccinated, only three per cent of the African continent can say the same.
“This pattern of inequity is obvious in its ugliness and prevalence. Therefore, we must act together to change it. We must establish structures of cooperation to promote our mutual socio-economic interests; increasing investment and trade, and people to people exchanges between Africa and the Caribbean.
“We should resist being pushed to the margins of international decision-making and collaborate on decisions to restructure the global financial architecture, on global taxation, derisking, climate change and reparations, among others,” Browne added.
