Secretary General of the United Nations, Your Excellency Ban Ki-Moon;
Their Excellencies, Representatives of the CARICOM Caucus of Ambassadors to the United Nations;
Under Secretary General of the United Nations for Political Affairs;
Representatives of Specialised UN Agencies;
Director General of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States;
Deputy Secretary General and Representatives of the CARICOM Secretariat;
Heads and other Representatives of CARICOM Institutions and Associate Institutions;
Partners in Development all;

On behalf of the CARICOM Delegation, I wish to thank you Secretary-General for your kind welcome to the United Nations (UN) Headquarters on the occasion of this the Fifth General Meeting between our Organizations and Agencies. I am sure that I speak for all when I say that we of CARICOM are no strangers to the UN Headquarters and yet it is a place whose halls, no matter how often visited, seem to inspire anew a belief in the power of the collective, to create a new world where peace, development and prosperity born of cooperation, are real possibilities. The conversion of those possibilities into reality, Mr. Secretary General, rests to a significant degree on your inspired leadership. We therefore extend to you our best wishes and pledge our full support, as you spearhead this noble task of this august body.

In that spirit, let me begin by stating unequivocally, that for the Community of small, vulnerable states that comprise the membership of CARICOM, the United Nations System is a critical partner whose commitment to and strivings for peace, security and development, are greatly appreciated and heavily relied on.

The biennial General Meetings between the Representatives of the Caribbean Community and the United Nations System, constitute an invaluable forum for the review and planning exercises which are key to enhancing CARICOM-UN cooperation.

The Fourth Meeting held, for the first time, at the CARICOM Secretariat Headquarters in Guyana in 2007, produced encouraging results. We are heartened that, the Joint Statement issued by that Meeting, was circulated both as a document of the Security Council (in response to Resolution 1631 (2005) ) and as an item on the Agenda (Item 108 (e)of the 61st General Assembly.

Like the Meetings that preceded it, the Fourth General Meeting facilitated a frank exchange between partners seeking to address a number of ongoing challenges. These include poverty, crime, food and energy insecurity, and disease, as well as environmental and socio-economic vulnerabilities and natural disasters – the latter two being particular nemeses of our small vulnerable island and low lying states in the Caribbean.

Those exchanges have led to action in a number of spheres. In the area of Climate Change, an area that is of critical importance to the Caribbean, the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and particularly, its Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean, has facilitated a number of environmental initiatives. Most recently it has promoted the UNEP–EC-ACP-Multilateral Environmental Agreement (MEA) Project. This Project seeks to build the capacity of CARICOM Member States to meet their obligations under selected environmental agreements such as the Convention on Biological Diversity and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The UNEP and UNDP Caribbean offices are together working with Member States of the Caribbean Community, the Climate Change Centre (CCCCC), and the Secretariat in ensuring that the Region is updated on preparations for the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference due to be held in December this year. That Conference will be of particular significance for our Region comprising as it does small islands and low lying coastal states. Our participation in the UN sponsored Conference of the Parties in Poznan, Poland last December, at which you met in special session, with His Excellency Bharrat Jagdeo, President of Guyana and my designated Representative, Dr. Edward Greene, Assistant Secretary General - signifies our Community’s keen interest in ensuring that any post Kyoto global mechanism includes, inter alia renewable energy and the maintenance of standing rainforest.

In the area of Food Security, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has been active in the Region in promoting the nexus between Food Security, Climate Change, Sustainable Development and Agriculture in the Caribbean. The FAO has partnered with the CARICOM Secretariat and other relevant institutions, such as the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI) and the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation in Agriculture (IICA), in promoting regional food security.

In this process, the FAO has provided substantial grant assistance to CARICOM small scale farmers to help in the reduction of the cost of their production. It has also assisted the Region in mobilizing resources, within the international donor community, to promote CARICOM’s agricultural reform programme, through joint sponsorship of the 2007 CARICOM Agricultural Donor Conference and the 2008 CARICOM Agricultural Investment Forum.

Distinguished Secretary-General, one of the strongest links in the chain of co-operation between United Nations and CARICOM organizations and agencies is the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). UNDP continues to be a major partner, for example, in facilitating the Region's efforts to implement the Barbados Programme of Action and the Mauritius Strategy in relation to Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

The agreed focus for UNDP-CARICOM collaboration in 2008 and into 2009 is extremely relevant, including as it does:

• Support for implementing the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME), the Community’s flagship activity and the main focus of our Fourth Meeting;

• Strengthening CARICOM Regional Governance including Support for the CARICOM Youth Commission;

• Climate Change, Disaster Risk and Sustainable Energy; and

• Poverty Assessments and MDG Monitoring

Now joining these priorities is the question of our Security. Mr. Secretary General, the Caribbean Community is struggling to keep up with the pace and level of sophistication of the threats thereto and the consequent countervailing measures necessary for ensuring our Region’s security. So vital is this issue to the social and economic fortunes of our Region that our Heads of Government have decided that security be included in our Treaty as the fourth pillar of Caribbean integration, joining the three pre-existing ones of: economic integration, foreign policy coordination and functional cooperation. To that end an entirely new security architecture has been established.

As the Community seeks to strengthen its security arrangements and make every effort to fulfil its international security commitments, it looks to the UN and its relevant specialized agencies to support its efforts. Of particular relevance is the United National Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) which is already engaged in the Region in establishing a crime prevention strategy in response to our escalating security challenges. We welcome the forthcoming meeting being organized by UNODC in two weeks time in the Dominican Republic and look forward to playing our full role in the deliberations. In this regard, the Community remains steadfast in its call for the re-opening of the UNODC Office in the Caribbean.

As regards cooperation in health, the collaboration between the United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS and the CARICOM Pan-Caribbean Partnership (PANCAP) against HIV/AIDS, - incidentally a Programme designated by UNAIDS in 2006 as an international best practice – that cooperation continues to make the difference in the lives of Caribbean individuals, families and communities. The Region has come to have confidence that it can count on the UN in this domain to continue to respond to its needs, not only as regards this particular deadly disease but also in relation to the non-communicable diseases which have, for some time now, been the major cause of mortality in the Caribbean.

Distinguished Secretary-General, Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, all of the aforementioned challenges especially those with regard to health, have severe negative implications for vulnerable populations, particularly women and children. In this regard, UNIFEM, UNFPA, UNAIDS and of course UNICEF among others, have supported relevant CARICOM programmes, providing vital assistance to enhance the capacity of Caribbean women and children to confront daily challenges.

It is against this background that one finds it difficult to understand the threat by UNICEF, to graduate Caribbean countries such as Belize and Jamaica from the benefits of its operations. Such action threatens to reverse the very gains that these countries have fought so hard to achieve and must now fight even harder to maintain. Moreover, the ability of these countries to achieve the Millennium Development Goals as they relate specifically to women and children, would be severely threatened by such graduation.

The issue of graduation, in its broadest sense must, in our view, be revisited. The Caribbean has long sought to impress on the international community the fact that our inherent vulnerabilities, render conventional definitions of development and consequent determinations of aid eligibility at best, inappropriate, at worst devastating, for our small states. A hurricane or a flood - and in the recent case of Haiti, four hurricanes within weeks of each other last September - can devastate the entire GDP of most of our countries in a matter of hours- carrying a country from middle income to literally no income overnight. And Haiti was not unique. There was Grenada in 2004; and Guyana in the case of floods in 2005.

Your Excellency, it is therefore evident that though UN-CARICOM cooperation has been solid and invaluable the onslaught of recent challenges confronting us demands even more of our cooperation. No challenge today is more devastating to our countries than the current global financial and economic crisis. Already seven of the ten most highly indebted emerging countries are CARICOM Member States. Further, the CARICOM Region is critically dependent on exports to and foreign investment from developed countries. In addition they are highly dependent on remittances from their nationals in developed countries.

In the circumstances where these developed countries are themselves facing the greatest financial and economic meltdown of the last half a century or more the prospects for our Region are nothing, if not frightening. It is only with creativity, innovation and flexibility and deeper integration on our part, together with support from the United Nations, its agencies and other international development partners that severe damage to our economies and societies can be averted.

Mr. Secretary General, I am sure that you will agree with me that our agenda today is therefore daunting but, necessary and that its fulfilment will be a herculean task. We are greatly appreciative of the partnership that the UN family offers under your distinguished leadership. Let us therefore ensure that these deliberations truly make a difference for the Peoples of the Caribbean. This is the purpose to which we are called at this special time. Let us not fail them.

I thank you.

CONTACT: piu@caricom.org