Black Immigrant Daily News

The Chairman of the Sugar Association of the Caribbean (SAC) R. Karl James presided over a recent meeting, with full participation from the four sugar producing CARICOM states.

With annual crops underway, or about to start, SAC Directors verified last year’s production statistics and shared projections for the current crop. SAC members also shared challenges and opportunities as they continue to invest to shore up the ability to supply the quantity while diversifying production quality to match all regional sugar demand as well.

Industry Plans

SAC Directors updated individual industry plans and highlighted a number of positive developments. Guyana has plans to bring additional lands under cane production and is expected to increase sugar production from 60, 000 metric tonnes this year to 100,000 metric tonnes by 2024.

A newly refurbished Rose Hall factory, previously closed, is expected to be operational by September of this year. Meanwhile in Belize, this year’s sugar production is projected to approach the 200, 000 metric tonnes mark–the majority of which is destined for regional sugar markets. Additionally, Barbados has enhanced its offering with an improved value-added, packaged sugar product for a key market that it traditionally only provided raw sugar.

Intra-Regional Sugar Trade

Directors noted that the Monitoring Mechanism for Sugar (MMS), implemented in conjunction with CARICOM Secretariat, continues to contribute positively to the intra-regional sugar trade, which has doubled annually since 2019. The MMS is a key tool for the sustained full enforcement of the Common External Tariff (CET) on extra-regional sourced sugar. The two main producers, Belize and Guyana, corroborated the regional growth momentum and expressed the hope for sustained demand uptrends.

SAC Future Work Plan

The Directors received an update on the Association’s proposed Work Plan. Key components of the plan are Green Energy Production, Carbon Credits and Markets, Food Security, Climate Resilience and Integrated Pest Management among other crossing cutting areas for sugar producing states, the regional agriculture sector and the wider CARICOM. Members are currently conducting internal consultations, country and company, with each member identifying priority areas for implementation. A special technical working group, with representation from each member, will collaborate to operationalize the plan based the agreed focus areas.

Regional Food Security

Directors reaffirmed their commitment to the Regional Agricultural Sector Plan, which aims to reduce CARICOM’s food import bill by 25 percent by the year 2025. Despite being a sensitive industry, sugar is still positioned to demonstrate its capacity to meet and even surpass that goal. SAC, therefore, reiterates publicly its desire to work with the CARICOM Special Ministerial Task Force on Food Security and plans to present its Work Plan to them.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

The upsurge in violence causing socio-economic upheaval in Haiti has serious implications for regional stability and warrants urgent attention, urges Premier of Nevis, Mark Brantley.

“I think the issue of Haiti is one that is not attracting sufficient attention from those of us who find ourselves in leadership positions across the region, and indeed across the world. By all accounts the situation in Haiti has deteriorated badly and the suggestion now is that armed criminal gangs are in control of most of Haiti. The government there has lost much of the control of the territory and the institutions naturally will suffer as a result.

“I recognize that at a recent CARICOM meeting in The Bahamas that Haiti did occupy some time on the agenda and I welcome that, and I say that as the Premier of Nevis and as a Federal representative on the Opposition benches that it is important that we as a region pay close critical and urgent attention to the situation in Haiti,” he said at a press conference on Feb. 28.

Just recently 13 Haiti nationals, including three juveniles, were intercepted by authorities in the waters off Nevis. According to Premier Brantley, this occurrence, the second such illegal entry of Haitians into Nevis, is likely an indication of what should be expected if the situation in Haiti is allowed to pervade.

“The persons who showed up here in Nevis are in my humble view a speck- they’re not even the tip of the iceberg. They are just a drop of water on the top of that iceberg of what could become a flood. And as I indicated in another forum, if even ten percent of the population of Haiti were to seek to flee Haiti because of the deteriorating security circumstances there, then we in our region can potentially see well over one million persons moving in the region.

“I shudder to think how a small island like Nevis or small country like St. Kitts and Nevis- a microstate- would be able to cope with even an influx of say 10,000 people. Think about it- our schools, our health sector, our housing sector, our social services. We have had for example, since this boat came ashore here in Nevis, 13 or so brothers and sisters from Haiti being housed at the community centre in Hanleys Road, and we’ve had of course to feed them and to take care of them. The costs keeps escalating daily; and that’s only 13 people, and so I feel that there is a clear and present danger that if the situation in Haiti is not addressed and Haitians, like people the world over decide to move…we’ve seen it everywhere in the world where there’s crisis, people seek safety, people flee, and if that happens, we have the potential for millions of persons to be seeking to flee Haiti to find comfort and support someplace else,” he said.

An attorney on St. Kitts sought and obtained an injunction to prevent the government from repatriating the illegal immigrants that were detained in Nevis and is seeking asylum for them. The Haitians will be moved to St. Kitts and maintained there until the court hearing, which is scheduled for March 6.

Premier Brantley, who served for seven years as Foreign Affairs Minister for St. Kitts and Nevis, says while he understands the sentimentality surrounding the issue, as a matter of practicality, the small island states of CARICOM simply do not have the resources to handle a large influx of persons in a short period of time.

“I hear the argument being made and I understand the sentiment behind that argument that these are our brothers and sisters, these are Caribbean people, in large measure these are black people like us, and we therefore should welcome them with open arms; but we live in a community where month after month I come here and the press challenges me, as they should, as to whether we are doing enough, whether the resources we’ve allocated to this or that are adequate, and we are in a constant situation in these islands of not having enough resources to provide for who we have here already.

“And so the question that comes is whether or not, with even a moderate number of individuals flowing into St. Kitts and Nevis, can we manage it, or will it lead to instability and difficulty. These are not in some cases people who are coming with money to invest, to buy homes, and to set themselves up. These are individuals who are fleeing a bad situation and are therefore coming looking for an opportunity. So do we have the jobs to provide, do we having the housing to house, do we have the space in our schools to send them to school, do we have the capacity to deal with any health issues that would arise with a large influx of individuals at one time, and will our society be open enough to say that this is something that we ought to do. I think these are all very important questions, because if we were to see a large influx of individuals overnight, it means that we could run the risk of seeing some instability occurring right here…It doesn’t give me any comfort to say these things, I just feel that these are important issues,” he cited, pointing out the obvious communication barrier as the official language of the 11.8 million residents of Haiti is French.

The Premier stated he would welcome a national debate in St. Kitts and Nevis on the issue as a matter of critical importance.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

Grenadian Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell this week called for businesses to work with governments across the region to accelerate national development through digital transformation.

“It is imperative that we embrace digitisation as a necessary step to transform our business operations and remain competitive,” Mitchell said, speaking at the opening ceremony of Grenada ICT Week, held in St. George’s, Grenada from February 27 to March 3.

“The Caribbean region has much to gain from the digital revolution but it requires businesses and government to take action and provide the necessary support. It is imperative that we work in tandem to create an enabling environment that will allow businesses to succeed in the digital age,” he added.

At Grenada ICT Week, Mitchell shared the stage with renowned technology experts at a unique initiative intended to yoke the power of digital transformation to the urgent priorities of Grenada and the Caribbean.

The four-day initiative was organized by the Grenada Chamber of Industry and Commerce (GCIC) in collaboration with the Grenada National Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (NTRC), the Caribbean Network Operators Group (CaribNOG) and the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN). It brought together business leaders, government officials, ICT professionals, academics, and members of civil society, alongside local, regional, and international experts to discuss the increasing role of technology in business, government, and society.

“ARIN was pleased to support this platform for attendees to explore key facets of the internet economy and the implications of global trends for regional and national development, including digital innovation, internet governance, and public policy,” said Bevil Wooding, Director of Caribbean Affairs at ARIN and co-founder of CaribNOG.

In the opening day Business Forum, entrepreneurs and business leaders gathered for frank discussions on how technology can be leveraged to drive economic growth and development in Grenada.

In the day two Public Sector Forum, government officials, industry regulators and senior public servants came together to explore promising opportunities to accelerate Grenada’s digital economy.

“Grenada is uniquely positioned as it has the lead within the Caricom for science and technology including information and communications. It is important therefore that it leads by example and that within both the public and private sectors there is a push to the adoption of technology to not just improve service delivery but to deliver new products and services regionally and internationally,” said Rodney Taylor, Secretary General of the Caribbean Telecommunications Union.

Grenada ICT Week activities included the twenty-fifth regional gathering of CaribNOG, held with the support of international technology experts from ARIN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the Internet Society and the Latin American and Caribbean Internet Registry (LACNIC).

“It has been our honour to host CaribNOG 25 as part of the Grenada ICT Week, and we were especially delighted to have the support of the Grenadian government for our Youth Forum, which was a special one-day workshop that provided career guidance and hands-on training for students and young ICT professionals,” said Stephen Lee, CEO of Arkitechs Inc. and co-founder of CaribNOG.

Building on the success of Grenada ICT Week, organizers are looking forward to a series of upcoming initiatives intended to increase Grenada’s capacity to leverage technology to create employment and accelerate economic growth.

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Black Immigrant Daily News

By Sir Ronald Sanders

If developing countries, especially the small and vulnerable states, expected meaningful attention by the G20 to the myriad economic and financial challenges that confront them, their hopes were dashed by failed meetings of Finance and Foreign Ministers in February and March.

The members of the G-20 are: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the U.K. and the U.S., as well as the European Union. Small states have no voice at the meetings, unless one of them is invited for a brief presentation.

Both of the G20 meetings were dominated by profound differences over the Russian war on Ukraine. This caused global economic issues to be pushed to one side. The failure of the Finance Ministers meeting, on 24 and 25 February, foreshadowed the collapse of the Foreign Ministers meeting on March 1 and 2. Reuters reported that, when a Communique was being negotiated for the Finance Ministers’ meeting, Russia insisted that the document must not mention the word “war”, insisting that the fighting in Ukraine is a “special military operation.”

In any event, no Communique was issued by either of the two meetings. Instead, the Chairpersons – the Finance and Foreign Ministers of India – were forced to release short statements that did not amount to much more than saying that the major powers dug deeper into their entrenched positions on Ukraine, discarding everything else. The Indian Foreign Minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, said there were “divergences” on the issue of the war in Ukraine “which we could not reconcile as various parties held differing views.”

China and Russia reportedly objected to two paragraphs taken from the previous G-20 declaration in Bali last year. The paragraphs stated that the war in Ukraine was causing immense human suffering while exacerbating fragilities in the global economy, the need to uphold international law, and that “the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible.” This was eminently acceptable language, particularly as all parties, including China and Russia, had accepted it a year ago.

A plea by India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, in a video presentation at the opening of the Foreign Ministers meeting, fell on deaf ears. But his message was right. Importantly, he lamented that the two main goals of the post-World War II international order – preventing conflict and fostering cooperation – were elusive. “The experience of the last two years – financial crisis, pandemic, terrorism and wars – clearly shows that global governance has failed in both its mandates,” he said.

India’s hope for the year of its Presidency of the G20 meshes well with the overall interests of developing countries. It emphasizes the demands of developing states for inclusive growth, climate finance, more representative multilateral institutions, and progress on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which were all reversed by the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

India’s attention to the heavy burden of debt on developing countries, and, indeed, of industrialized countries as well, is also urgent. Every country now finds it difficult to service outstanding debt, given the demands of recovering and rebuilding damaged economies.

Even before the harmful impacts of Covid-19 and the global disruption, caused by the Russian war on Ukraine, the debt to GDP ratio was already unsustainable. After these two devastating events, debt to GDP ratio in many countries soared to over 100 per cent. Now commercial borrowing has become almost impossible, given the continuing increase in interest rates.

Restructuring sovereign debt is both necessary and urgent. However, China has made it clear it will not participate in restructuring. China follows its own path, regarding money that it lends to friendly nations. And some Western countries have declared that they will not accept reducing debt owed to them, for their debtor countries to pay back China. So, while differences between major powers persisted, the interests of the developing countries at the G20 were ignored.

Climate Change should also have featured meaningfully on the G20 agenda. It did not. No discussion took place, although countries that are victims of climate change expected movement on this issue before the next Climate meeting, COP28, in December.

The fact that developing countries – despite the presence of India and South Africa – could make no impact on the major powers at the G20, is deeply troubling.

This stark reality should spur all developing countries to do more, not less. The economies of the global economy are seriously undermined by the Russian war on Ukraine and its consequences, including the retaliatory economic and other actions taken by the European Union and the member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Developing countries lack the resilience and financial resources of the rich countries to ride out this turbulent economic storm; they cannot afford to sit by in silence.

As positions become more entrenched and more strident between the powerful protagonists of the war on Ukraine, world peace is endangered with frightening prospects for all nations, including those involved in the conflict.

In this connection, the failure of the G20 meetings raises a screeching alarm that developing countries should not ignore. If no movement was possible, even with India chairing these meetings, the clarion call for urgent collective action by developing countries should be heard by all. If ever there was a time for a revival of a genuine and practical non-aligned movement in the world, that time is now.

China, also, has an influential role to play in all this as an honest broker, taking no sides, aiding no protagonist, and promoting the established rules of the U.N. Charter and international law.

Efforts are urgent to return the world to an agenda, focused on tackling common problems such as disease and climate change; promoting human development including inequality and human rights; and engaging in dialogue to improve and enhance global rules that respect and uphold sovereignty and territorial integrity.

All developing countries should now work together, in all international fora, to present a third way to resolving global challenges, including conflicts.

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