(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown,
Guyana)
Opening Remarks delivered by Ms Myrna Bernard, Officer
in Charge of the Directorate of Human and Social
Development, in the CARICOM Secretariat At the
Opening Ceremony of the 21st Meeting of the Council
for Human and Social Development (COHSOD) on Health
Friday 15 April 2011 Georgetown Guyana
It is my pleasure to welcome you to this
Twenty-First Meeting of COHSOD and to bring you
brief introductory remarks as we commence this
Opening Ceremony which will not only set the tone
for the proceedings of this Meeting of the Council,
but which will also provide an opportunity for
sensitization of our wider audience of stakeholders
within the Community with regard to developments
which influence their health and well being.
This Twenty –First Meeting of the Council has
been convened under the Theme Promoting Equity in
Human Development through Public Health, was
preceded by the Meeting of Chief Medical Officers
and the Annual Meeting of the Council of Caribbean
Council for Health Research, and runs concurrently
with the Conference of the Scientific Health
Research Council (CHRC), one of the region’s five
Health Institutions.
The Government of Guyana willingly agreed to host
all of these meetings and I would like at the
outset, to express our appreciation to the
Government of Guyana for the excellent arrangements
made for hosting. The CMOs at their meeting earlier
this week and the Director of the CHRC, at the
Opening Ceremony of the CHRC Meeting last evening
were full of commendation for the Minister, Chief
Medical Officer and staff of the Ministry of Health
for the professional and friendly service extended
to them. They have, and continue to experience that
special brand of hospitality for which Guyana is so
well known.
The assertion by CARICOM Heads of Government, ten
years ago, in the Nassau Declaration that the Health
of the Region is the Wealth of the Region, is not a
mere cliche, but rather, founded on empirical
evidence which demonstrates the link between human
development drivers, of which health and education
are the primary ones and a country’s Gross Domestic
Product (GDP).
Over the past ten years, COHSOD has continued to
build on the regional legacy of functional
cooperation in health which resulted over the years
in dramatic improvement in national and regional
indicators with regard to important areas such as
child survival and maternal mortality, and more
recently, the stabilisation of the HIV/AIDS
epidemic. The Agenda focuses on taking stock of
progress with regard to the Caribbean Cooperation in
Health III and within this context emphasis is
placed on some of the newer morbidities such as
obesity, and the Non-Communicable Diseases.
The COHSOD will also review progress in a second
pillar of the Nassau Declaration, viz HIV/AIDS. The
Meeting of the Chief Medical Officers featured
intense discussion as they considered in detail the
progress made in several areas outlined, for example
in the Port –of Spain Declaration, Uniting to Stop
the Chronic Non-Communicable diseases, using
recently developed tools for monitoring and
evaluation.
The meeting of COHSOD will benefit from the
recommendations made by the CMOs on these and
several other issues. In the areas of HIV/AIDS and
the Non-Communicable Diseases, the Caribbean
Community, through its commitment to these causes,
its advocacy and the strength of its institutions
such as the Pan Caribbean Partnership against
HIV/AIDS, has commanded global attention in a manner
that belies our size. COHSOD will strategise for our
continued leadership and advocacy as we approach two
important UN High Level Meetings this year in the
areas of HIV/AIDS (Washington D.C. in June and the
Non Communicable Diseases, New York, in September.
One additional area of the COHSOD Agenda which I
would like to highlight is that of Drug –Demand
Reduction. The Secretariat, through the Directorate
of Human and Social Development has undertaken, over
the past three years, with funding through the
Caribbean Institutional Strengthening Programme
under the EU 9th EDF, activities intended to address
the scourge of drug addiction which threatens to
erode the gains which we have achieved in Human
Development.
Focus has been on institutional
strengthening with a focus on National Drug Councils
and the development of tools for use by Member
States in addressing behavior change for Drug Demand
Reduction. Many of these tools have been developed
by youth across the Community, feature emerging
modalities such as edutainment, and are an important
addition to the suite of measures currently employed
for this purpose. The discussion on this issue at
the Meeting of CMOs emphasized the potential
usefulness of these tools and highlighted the
importance of increased attention to addressing this
challenge.
The far reaching impacts of the drug addiction
and the other major health issues which form the
core of the Agenda for this twenty-first meeting of
COHSOD and the complex nature of their determinants
demand inter-sectoral and integrated responses that
extend way beyond our Health Ministries and require
engagement not only within social sector areas, but
also with other sectors, including the judiciary,
agriculture, trade, finance for example. The focus
of this Meeting on Public Health approaches to
addressing the health and well-being challenges
facing our region is appropriate.
Although the importance of individual
responsibility is often highlighted, most of the
contributing behaviours are socially patterned
(smoking, alcohol abuse), and therefore likely to be
more effectively addressed through approaches which
focus on strategies for groups and specific
populations. Finally, I wish to spend a brief moment
to highlight the ambitious and progressive step
being taken by the region in the establishment of a
single Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) from
the five Regional Health Institutions, in order to
address its public health needs in a more
coordinated manner.
COHSOD will review steps towards the
implementation of this Institution with a view to
ensuring that mechanisms are put in place for its
establishment this year- What a fitting way to mark
the tenth Anniversary of the Nassau Declaration! I
close these brief introductory remarks by expressing
appreciation to our many development partners who
have not only provided financial and technical
resources for programme development and execution
but who engage in visioning with us as we seek to
ensure the wealth of the region.
I thank you
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