The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Assistant Secretary General, Joseph Cox,
has warned the region that the next 50 years of the regional integration movement
“certainly can’t be business as usual.”
“We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now and therefore have no time for
procrastination or complacency. It is time for action grounded in strategic
nimbleness, guided by pragmatism as optimized growth and development of the
services sector is paramount,” Cox told a one-day conference on “Advancing the
Services Agenda within CARICOM,” organized by the Antigua and Barbuda
government.
Cox, the Assistant Secretary General – Economic Integration, Innovation &
Development, told the event during his virtual address on Friday, that in
contemplating the current dynamic within the region’s services sector “ we must
take cognizance of the fact that the sector is yet again at another inflexion point.
CARICOM Assistant Secretary General, Joseph Cox (File Photo)
“However, we must be equally cognizant that cookie-cutter approaches are
antithetical to the kind of nuanced re-engineering, required at the national level
throughout the region for there to be an optimization of output for the services
sector.”
But he said that this process requires transformational leadership and thought,
translated into deliberate action to effect the requisite adjustments to occasion
meaningful change,” he said, noting that the regime for services is anchored in the
Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, which is our collective reference point across the
Community,”
Cox said industries such as tourism, the hospitality sector, health, construction,
technology, and transport among others are at the backbone of the services sector
in the region.
“We must also take account of the range of digital services that are now the staple
of our everyday lives. Indeed, the business architecture has already been
sufficiently transformed where ICT (Information, Communication Technology) is
no longer deemed a mere support service, but a principal driver in the Post-COVID
operating environment.”
The senior CARICOM public service official said this points to the need for
increased emphasis to be placed on the operating ethos that currently obtains in the
regional space and where necessary, the need for legislative and regulatory
guidelines to be reviewed and strengthened to assure the modernization of the
economies.
Meanwhile, Antigua and Barbuda’s Ambassador to CARICOM, Dr. Clarence
Henry, told the conference that it is amazing that as the regional integration
movement observes its 50th anniversary “there is no special award being given to
workers in the vineyard.”
“We must correct this glaring omission,” Henry noted, that there should be created
perhaps every two or three years, a special recognition for the hard, dedicated staff
at the Guyana-based CARICOM Secretariat “who work under much pressure and
difficult circumstances.”
“I applaud them for their unwavering stewardship. A person should receive such an
award of recognition where the community acknowledges their contribution to
building the community of our one Caribbean Communities. Many have come and
left the stage, but we ought to remember them as well. The selection must be done
utilizing agreed criteria and selected by a select committee,” he told the ceremony.
