Water high on CARICOM agenda

Wednesday March 10, 2010 – With several Member States of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) reeling from the effects of drought, the water situation in the Region will come under sharp focus at the 21^st Intercessional Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government which opens Thursday morning.

The Heads of Government Meeting at Fort Young Hotel in Roseau, Dominica, will discuss water resources within the Community during the two-day Summit under the broader head of `Critical issues in the development of the Community’.

The agricultural sector, upon which many Member States depend, has been hard hit by the extended dry season with Member States including Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Saint Lucia, Jamaica, Guyana, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada and Dominica reporting unusually dry conditions.

Management of the Region’s water resources has been a key area of concentration for Governments and water conservation plans have been activated in some Member States. Resources also have been allocated to ease the effects of the drought. The El Nino weather phenomenon has been blamed for the prolonged dry spell.

According to the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology, with the dry conditions and prevailing winds this time of the year there are increasing concerns about bush fires in the southern Caribbean.

The threat of disease has also been raised.

The Region’s follow-up to Copenhagen and Preparations for the COP 16 is the other matter the Heads of Government will consider under the `Critical issues in the development of the Community’.

The Heads of Government begin their first business session Thursday morning and among other issues down for discussion will be developments in relation to the critical situation in Haiti following the devastating earthquake of 12 January. His Excellency Rene Preval, the President of Haiti will be attending the meeting.

Economic and financial issues, with a focus on the input of small vulnerable economies at the G20 Meeting in Ottawa Canada in June will also be discussed by the CARICOM leaders. Mr. Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank will be attending the meeting, while Mr. Luis Alberto Moreno, President of the Inter American Development Bank and Mr. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund have also been invited. Heads of Government will also consider a review of the economies of CARICOM Member States which will be presented by the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB).

The Heads of Government will exchange views with His Excellency José Miguel Insulza, Secretary-General of the Organisation of American States (OAS), and will have discussions on the follow-up to and preparations for Summits including the CARICOM/Brazil Summit scheduled for late April and the European Union-Latin America and Caribbean (EU/LAC) Summit scheduled for Madrid, Spain in mid-May.

Matters that will be delt with during the course of the meeting include the appraisal of the status of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME), the CARICOM Development Fund (CDF), the Marketing Campaign for the Region’s Tourism product and the United Kingdom Air Passenger Duty (APD).

The establishment of three entities - Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA), the Caribbean Agricultural Health and Food Safety Agency (CAHFSA), and the Caribbean Knowledge and Learning Network Agency (CKLNA) and C@ribNet will be considered under the broad head of institutional developments within the Community.

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