Roseau, Dominica: Prime Minister Dr. Roosevelt Skerrit confirmed that the retreat of CARICOM leaders scheduled for Dominica for August 18 to 19 had been called off. The new date will be rescheduled at a later date.
Speaking during the press conference, PM Roosevelt Skerrit who is also the chairman of the CARICOM, said that some heads of the CARICOM member states were not available which is why the meeting got cancelled. He said that it was important to have all heads available for this retreat.
He also shared that the government of Dominica is planning to host a retreat of the OECS Authority as a number of heads confirmed their attendance.
“We are looking at hosting a retreat of the OECS Authority on those same dates, but we are working on this and will share the update soon about the actual host of the retreat here in Dominica. A number of heads confirmed their attendance, but we’re working on others so once we come from, we will inform of the final decision on the hosting soon.”
The two-day retreat was planned to review a number of reports, such as regional governance and strengthening functional cooperation, ahead of their next mid-term summit scheduled for Guyana.
On the rescheduling of the date, PM Roosevelt Skerrit said that they are still in consultation for a new date so that everyone can agree on a date with so many competing events and competing schedules.
PM Roosevelt Skerrit said that if they host the OECS meeting this weekend, education reform would be one of the agenda items. He said that it is important to look at the education front to better prepare people for the current world.
He said that there are some very critical matters CARICOM needs to consider and one of which is regional travel, and the other has to do with trade and the removal of barriers to trade among CARICOM counties.
“The issue of food security in respect to reducing our full import bill by 25 by 2025, which has been two years times, where we are this what additional we need to take.”
On the issue of climate change, PM Skerrit said that it is another major issue of the meeting. He said that the Caribbean people truly understand and appreciate the existential threat that climate change poses to them.
Talking about Paris Agreement, he said that nothing that they would agree in this Paris Agreement just signed in 2015 has come to reality. He added, ”There’s a commitment that the developed world would make available 100 billion dollars annually to a fund that countries would use to build resilience against natural disasters. The funds were announced to build better places for our countries to withstand the ravages of these natural disasters.”