Today is “Caricom Day” and we are only one of two members that have honoured it with a public holiday. To us, it signals that Caricom matters for so many reasons – social, economic, cultural, strategic and, as we discovered last year, political. It was its intervention then, of course, under the chairpersonship of Barbados’ inimitable PM Mia Mottley that literally saved our fledgling and still frail democracy from the machinations of the People’s National Congress (PNC) under David Granger. Without Caricom, the PNC’s concocted narrative of “Western” interference would have received much more traction than it actually did.
Approaching fifty years of its launch in 1973, it warrants a closer look at the institution to ensure that the rationales for its formation are still relevant and if so, what can be done to achieve those goals that remain unfulfilled. There has to be an acceptance of a willingness to be bold. There can be no complacency in an endeavour that has such high stakes for the people in the Caribbean. There were other colonies in far worse shape than we were at independence, but through a willingness to make hard decisions, they have forged far ahead. Notable in this regard is Singapore, a city-state with almost no natural resources, but it is now a “developed country”. In his book “From Third World to First”, Singapore’s first Prime Minister, Lee Kwan Yew explicitly cited the instance of Jamaica, which was ahead of his country by so many criteria, but has now lagged. What Singapore did was craft a plan for its development and stick to it with dogged determination.
Caricom’s leaders did have such a vision and plan back in 1973 when they signed the Treaty of Chaguaramas, but they have not stuck to it. For instance, the diversification of our economies to become more export-oriented has been one of the foundational goals of Caricom from the onset. What else could economies that had been founded to produce a single crop – sugar – do? The term “mono-crop” agriculture was invented in the Caribbean. The second prong should have been redundant, since historically, all our production was for export.
But for the Caribbean to diversify when they each had such small internal markets, they not only had to expand their markets, they also had to rationalise their production. It was accepted from the beginning that it did not make sense, economic or otherwise, for each country to produce the same range of goods: the relative comparative advantages were identified quite early on. The only constraint was the lack of political will from the politicians to overcome their aversion to cooperation.
Caricom must return to this basic lesson. The Jagdeo Initiative on Agriculture is as good a place to start as any. Ten constraints had been identified since 2004 as necessary to be removed if we were not only to become self-sufficient in food production, but become large exporters. The reason why none of these have been resolved is the conclusion by the other leaders that since Guyana and Belize have the greatest amount of available agricultural land, they would benefit inordinately.
There has been very little discussion that agriculture is not only about land and that each territory would have also benefited since each could have provided different inputs. Trinidad and Barbados, for instance, would have earned greater returns on the capital they would have invested.
In addition to “diversification” of products, markets also have to be diversified. For too long we have reflexively continued shipping our goods to our “traditional” markets in the US and Europe. The 1973 plan for Caricom was drafted at a time when South-South linkages were being pushed so as to overcome the past dependent relationships.
Ten years ago, conceding that there had been slippage in the achievement of its goals, then President Bharrat Jagdeo convened a retreat of all the Heads of Government at Tepuru Resort in Essequibo to “revitalise Caricom”. Four did not show up.
Maybe President Irfaan Ali should invite them back.
