(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Prime Minister of Barbados Hon. Freundel Stuart urged the Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Ambassador Irwin LaRocque to identify the existing paramount challenges facing regional integration.

Prime Minister Stuart received the Secretary-General at his official residence, Ilaro Court on Monday 7 November on the first day of the Secretary-General’s official visit to Barbados.

The Prime Minister encouraged the Secretary-General to focus on what CARICOM needed in order to energise the integration movement and revive the consciousness of the people. Critical to this, he said would be finding out what kind of Caribbean the Community wanted.

The visit follows on similar missions to St Kitts and Nevis and Antigua and Barbuda and will include interactions with Youth, the Private Sector and the media as well as visits to CARICOM Secretariat offices and regional institutions based in Barbados.

Ambassador LaRocque took the opportunity to share with the Hon. Prime Minister his vision and ideas for taking the integration movement forward, a task which he said could not be achieved without the buy-in of all interested parties, and without paying attention to what stakeholders in the Region were saying.

In a wide-ranging discourse, the Secretary General recalled that at their Retreat in May 2011 in Guyana, Heads of Government had asked for a review of the current state of implementation of regional integration and noted the need to consolidate on those gains. Ambassador LaRocque saw the need to prioritise the goals in which interventions could have a positive impact of the populace, such as Transportation, Sport and the Youth.

The Barbados leader said that while the focus of attention had been on the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME), there was a need to put people’s ideals and passions back into the regional thrust. As examples the Prime Minister cited CARIFESTA, cricket and the University of the West Indies, all of which, he said were unifying forces but did not form part of the Region’s productive sector. The Secretary-General also paid courtesy calls on Monday on the President of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) Dr Warren Smith, and the Programme Co-ordinator of the Caribbean Regional Technical Assistance Centre (CARTAC), Dr Arnold McIntyre.

The Secretary-General and the CDB President spoke of the similarities of their priorities and agreed to work towards greater collaboration in the activities of the two institutions. Agriculture, Haiti, the Private Sector and Information and Communication Technologies for Development, featured prominently in their discussions.

At CARTAC’s offices, Dr McIntyre gave the Secretary-General a comprehensive overview of the operations of his organisation in the region as well as a perspective on the economic situation of the Community.

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