1.0 Introduction Our Caribbean civilization has taken a battering on the social and economic fronts largely on account of the global economic downturn of September 2008 and continuing, the frequency and severity of natural disasters, and the self-inflicted homegrown challenges arising from the regional insurance and indigenous banking meltdown, and unacceptable levels of serious crimes. It is evident to all reasonable persons of discernment that our region would find it more difficult by far to address its immense current and prospective challenges unless its governments and peoples embrace strongly a more mature, more profound regionalism. That ought to be a noise in the blood, an echo in the bone of our Caribbean civilisation. Dr. the Honourable Ralph E. Gonsalves, Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Chair of CARICOM, June 20141 “If we did not have CARICOM, we would have to invent it”
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Participant at a Member State consultation for developing the CARICOM Strategic Plan 2015 – 2019, September 2013
Member States of the Community stressed the need for a “refocusing, redirection, and reorganisation of the Community”2 to move the Community forward and reignite the flames of regional integration. This mandate resonates with the decision and direction of the Heads of Government at their Twenty-Third Inter-Sessional in March 2012 “to re-examine the future direction of the Community and the arrangements for carrying [it] forward which would include the role and function of the Secretariat”; and further that a strategic plan for the Community should be prepared. In response to this decision of the Conference, the Community has embarked on a Reform Process which anticipates two (2) major outcomes3, viz, a. a 5-year Strategic Plan for the Community; b. a transformed Secretariat [and Community] with strategic focus, implementation capacity and strengthened corporate functions guided by the approved Community Strategic Plan.
Even as the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) celebrated its 40th year, the
“Free Movement of Community Nationals, the CCJ, Shanique Myrie, Community Law and Our Caribbean Civilisation”. Distinguished Lecture Series of the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago, June 17, 2014 2 Terms of Reference: Change Facilitator, p.1 3 Ibid, p. 2 1