Black Immigrant Daily News

Former president of the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism and Association (CHTA) Patricia Affonso-Dass believes the 41st annual Caribbean Travel Marketplace, to be held in Barbados May 9-11, can be a defining moment for the travel trade body.

The Barbados-based hotelier, who runs Ocean Hotels Group on the island, said Caribbean Travel Marketplace has special significance this year because “it represents and showcases our region’s and association’s ability to transform, change and reinvent to meet the ever-changing needs, demands and realities of this dynamic industry.”

For only the second time in its history, the event will be hosted in the Eastern Caribbean.

Affonso-Dass noted that the new format of the event provides the opportunity for hoteliers and tourism stakeholders not only to connect with hospitality buyers and suppliers across the region, but also to “highlight the link with artisans, manufacturing, agriculture and the smaller but critically important players that make up the fabric of Caribbean tourism.”

Affonso-Dass, who served as CHTA president from 2018 to 2020, stated that the 33 Caribbean destinations comprising the association reflect different cultures, languages, cuisines and a phenomenal collection of experiences.

“Caribbean Travel Marketplace allows us to bring this all together and showcase the region to our partners and the world in a way that is very difficult to do individually,” said Affonso-Dass, who was born in Dominica, raised in Guyana, and now lives in Barbados.

“Each of our members is unique, special and compelling, but all together this region represents tremendous value and importance not just to our individual economies, but also to the revenues of the partners who sell the Caribbean – both land-based and cruise,” remarked the respected hotelier, as she invited the world to come and do business at Marketplace 41 in Barbados.

Marketplace will be preceded by the second annual Caribbean Travel Forum and will be held at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre.

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The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), with central offices located in Santiago, Chile, is celebrating 75 years since its creation with a commitment to continue working for a more productive, inclusive and sustainable future for the region.

The Economic Commission for Latin America was established by a resolution of the United Nations Economic and Social Council on 25 February 1948 and began work in Santiago that same year. Later, in 1984, the Council decided that its name would be changed to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, one of the five regional commissions of the United Nations.

In a video message, the ECLAC Executive Secretary, Costa Rican economist Jos? Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, noted that “we have reason to celebrate because the Commission’s contribution to the theory and practice of economic and social development in the region over the past seven and a half decades has been widely recognized in the region and throughout the world.”

According to the institution’s highest representative, “over the years, ECLAC has updated its thinking in accordance with changing realities, creating roadmaps and shedding abundant light on the options and priorities for the progress of our nations.”

Today, the regional commission launched a website that provides an overview of its origins, the evolution of its thinking and current institutional priorities. The site describes the centre-periphery and industrialisation model of the 1950s; the structural reforms for regional development in the 1960s; the development styles of the 1970s; the debt crisis of the 1980s; the productive transformation with equity of the 1990s; the triad of globalisation, development and citizenship of the 2000s; equality at the centre of sustainable development of the 2010s; and the transformation of the development model into one that is more productive, inclusive and sustainable in the 2020s.

“As we commemorate these 75 years, we begin a new phase in which we will carry out a series of activities that will allow us not only to celebrate our 75th anniversary but also to strengthen our abilities to continue our work and better serve Latin America and the Caribbean to build a more productive, inclusive and sustainable future,” stated Jos? Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, who took on his role on 3 October 2022.

The website also offers a section with photos of distinguished guests, personnel and the ECLAC building, considered a benchmark of modern Latin American architecture, as well as other resources with information on this regional commission of the United Nations.

ECLAC was founded to contribute to the economic development of Latin America, coordinate actions aimed at promoting this development and strengthen the economic relations between countries in the region and other nations around the world. Later, its work was expanded to the countries in the Caribbean.

In addition to its main headquarters in Santiago, ECLAC has two sub-regional sites, one for the Central American subregion located in Mexico City and the other for the Caribbean subregion in Port of Spain, established in June 1951 and December 1966, respectively. It also has national offices in Buenos Aires, Brasilia, Montevideo and Bogota, as well as a liaison office in Washington, D.C.

The 33 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean are members of ECLAC, along with some nations in North America, Europe and Asia, which maintain historical, economic and cultural ties with the region. In total, there are 46 member states and 14 associate members, a legal status granted to some non-independent territories in the Caribbean.

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Energy sector stakeholders from across the Caribbean will meet in Barbados next week to strategise on how they can strengthen their regulatory frameworks to expedite renewable energy investments in the Region.

The two-day engagement is being led by the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) as part of its Accelerated Sustainable Energy and Resilience Transition-2030 (ASERT-2030) framework, in partnership with the Organization of Caribbean Utility Regulators (OOCUR).It will take place on February 28 and March 1 at the Hilton Barbados Resort.

It will see decision makers and leaders from government energy ministries and regulatory bodies from CDB’s 19 Borrowing Member Countries (BMCs), as well as regional and international development partners, come together to look at how best to pool efforts and resources to increase the speed and scale of the sustainable energy transition through improved regulatory frameworks.

The meeting comes as the Region continues to reel from the energy price shocks experienced last year, which further highlight the acute energy insecurity and economic vulnerability associated with over dependence on imported fossil fuels.

It also comes against the background of slow progress towards the achievement of the regional renewable energy targets.

Coordinator of the Sustainable Energy Unit at CDB, Joseph Williams, pointed out the figures which he said underscored the need for urgent and transformative action to rapidly accelerate the Regional sustainable energy transition.

“As of 2021, the total amount of renewable energy generating capacity was only approximately 12% of the total regional installed electricity generation capacity, which is a far way off from the goal of approximately 47% by 2027 (or 55% by 2030). To meet these goals, CDB’s BMCs, would need to install approximately 2,600 MW of renewable energy in the next eight years. This is a 1400% increase over the current rate.

To get near to this, we need to think big, work collectively and coordinate actions and funding. This is why CDB has conceptualised our ASERT-2030 framework – to promote bold decision making and transformative initiatives. Given the criticality of enabling regulatory environments this regional regulatory dialogue is intended to put plans into action,” said Williams.

In a sign of the commitment to coordinated efforts, the event is being supported by a wide range of the key development partners working in the energy space in the Caribbean. These include the the government of Canada, the government of the United Kingdom, the European Union, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and the Caribbean Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (CCREEE).

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