(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) As Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport for Guyana, charged with the responsibility of chairing this Twenty-Second Meeting of the Council for Human and Social Development, it is my pleasure to welcome you to this Meeting and to my country. I hope that will you find some time outside of this forum to experience the warmth and hospitality of Guyana, which is rooted in the rich cultural heritage and diversity of our people.

The theme of this meeting, which is “Culture, Youth and Sport: Strategic Repositioning for Human Development and Economic Growth,” sets the tone, context and spirit in which we will approach a number of pressing issues on our Agenda over the next two days. Some of these issues are new and will chart an important course forward in our cooperation and strategic repositioning of CARICOM; while others are very familiar to many of us, but require a renewed commitment to action on the part of Member States.

We need renewed commitment to follow-up on the recommendations of the CARICOM Commission on Youth Development and the Declaration of Paramaribo on the Future of Youth in the Caribbean Community, made in January 2010 in Suriname. We need to ensure that youth are treated as invaluable assets and important partners in national and regional development and that they are fully integrated in the work of the Caribbean Community. It is in this context that we also need renewed commitment to the CARICOM Youth Ambassador Programme to ensure that it realizes its fullest potential in developing a cadre of young leaders, committed to regionalism.

We also need to redouble our efforts to address the scourge of youth gangs, and violence across our region, and we will spend some time discussing collaborative approaches to addressing this issue during this Meeting. We also need to ensure that young people pursue healthy and active lifestyles, and at least ensure that physical education and sport is compulsory in our school curriculum, so that we can begin to stem the rising tide of Chronic Non-Communicable Diseases in our region.

In culture, we need to renew our commitment to implementing the new model for CARIFESTA, to ensure that the Festival meets the expectations of both artists and Caribbean audiences, and serves as an important platform for developing vibrant cultural and creative industries. This would be in keeping with the Strategic Plan written for the Festival in 2004, but which has only been implemented in part. I wish to express, on behalf of CARICOM, great appreciation to Suriname for their offer to host CARIFESTA XI in 2013. We are confident that Suriname is planning to showcase our region at its best and in fine Surinamese style, and I am equally confident that all the other Member States will provide Suriname with their full support to ensure a successful event.

We also need renewed action and attention to the free movement of artists, cultural workers and sportspersons in the region, to ensure that they travel hassle-free and are enabled to play an integral role in promoting integration, identity and wealth creation. We now have an Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union and we need to increase our efforts to realize the potential benefits for the artistic community in CARICOM.

With respect to new issues on our Agenda, we are looking forward to the discussion on developing a Regional Sports Tourism Strategy, to see how we can leverage an area of comparative advantage for the region, upgrade, as well as make better use of sports infrastructure, to generate income for our countries. In this context, we welcome the initiative of the Government of Suriname to establish a Regional Sports Academy, that will help to further develop our human resources in sport and we look forward to the update on the plans for this well-need initiative.

We also welcome the progress made by a Technical Working Group supported by the CARICOM Secretariat, towards developing CARICOM Youth Development Goals, as a guide to minimum acceptable levels of national policy and programming, to achieve success outcomes for the well being, empowerment and continuous engagement of youth. However, these will have to be translated into national policy and action to have a meaningful impact on the lives of young people.

Finally, the Council will review and discuss the Draft Regional Development Strategy for the Cultural Industries in CARICOM, which is intended, as stated in the Vision Statement, “To take advantage of the opportunities for exponential growth provided by the dynamic global creative economy, and position Caribbean cultural industries as vectors for regional integration and sustainable human, social and economic development, by increasing their productivity, competitiveness and contribution to Caribbean economies.

It may be recalled that a joint meeting of COHSOD and COTED held in Guyana in January 2008 mandated the establishment of a Regional Task Force to develop a comprehensive Regional Development Strategy and Action Plan for the Cultural Industries in CARICOM. This Task Force, which was established in October 2008, was also to make recommendations for an appropriate incentives regime and financing mechanism for the cultural industries, among other developmental areas to be addressed.

The Strategy calls on Caribbean governments through progressive policy-making, to create an enabling environment to facilitate targeted support to the sector, in terms of financing, incentives, education and training, intellectual property management; business support services, trade and export facilitation, institutional strengthening, research and data collection, among other areas.

I wish to commend the members of the Regional Task Force on Cultural Industries, Co-Chaired by Mr. Adrian Augier, Caribbean Laureate for Arts and Letters (2010) and cultural entrepreneur; and Mr. Sydney Bartley, Principal Director of Culture, Jamaica, on having delivered a seminal regional report, which will redound to the benefit of both the artistic community and the wider regional public. We know that you faced many financial and logistical challenges in preparing this work, and we congratulate you on having managed to keep the ship afloat. The Community owes a debt of gratitude to you and the team of 20 persons drawn from government, industry, educational and regional institutions for your perseverance, so that forward thinking, draft Regional Strategy on Cultural Industries could be presented today for in depth review and discussion by COHSOD.

On behalf of all of us, I would like to extend heartiest congratulations to the Government and people of Barbados, on their success in receiving approval for the inscription of Historic Bridgetown and its Garrison on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Barbados is now only the 7th Member State to have a site inscribed on this prestigious List, which affirms the universal value of the site and highlights the space as a preferred location for international tourism.

Colleague Ministers and other officials, I’m sure you share my enthusiasm, my optimism and my conviction that through our decisive and collective action, these three areas – Culture, Youth and Sport – can contribute immeasurably to human development, economic growth and improved quality of life in this region. . I wish us all a fruitful deliberation.

Thank you.

Contact: piu@caricom.org
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