Honourable Ministers,
National Authorising Officers,
Representatives of Regional Organisations,
Representatives of Non-State Actors,
Ladies and Gentlemen.

I wish to welcome you to this Meeting of CARIFORUM Stakeholders on 10th EDF Programming. As you are aware, the European Union has allocated €132 Million  to CARIFORUM for programming under the 10th European Development Fund. You may recall that in recent times CARIFORUM received €90 Million for the 8th EDF and €57 Million for the 9th EDF. In real terms, the €132 Million does not seem to be much given the overall development finance needs of the Caribbean.

However, these resources are real, in the sense that we will have access to them from January 2008. We must, therefore, engage in a process in which we must plan the use of these resources to achieve optimum impact on Caribbean regional cooperation and development efforts and the people of the Caribbean.

In principle, we have agreed with the European Commission that every effort will be made to have a Regional Strategy Paper and Regional Indicative Programme, for the 10th EDF, completed in time for the available resources to become accessible as early as is possible. In that context, CARIFORUM must decide on its internal priorities and delivery mechanisms for the use of these resources.

The CARIFORUM approach to 10th EDF Programming must take careful account of the regional integration processes ongoing in the Region. That approach must also take into account the varying levels of development of our Member States and the support which must be provided and the programmes which must be put into place to ensure that all CARIFORUM Member States participate meaningfully in the regional integration and cooperation processes.

Today, we have an opportunity to review and examine strategies and policies in the Region. We have an opportunity to assist the Region in defining and redefining its priorities. We also have an opportunity in advising the Region on how to allocate scarce resources between and among competing priorities.

Ladies and gentlemen, I must remind you that the exercise upon which we are about to embark is an important regional exercise. It should not be seen as an exercise in which national resources are to be supplemented. Instead, each of you, today, must become and act like ‘regionalists’ giving the best advice possible in the best interest of the CARIFORUM region.

In your deliberations, I am going to exhort you to always keep a few matters in mind. You must take into consideration our physical and economic vulnerabilities. You must take into account the internal and external economic challenges facing the Caribbean region. You must take into account the desire to participate meaningfully in the global economy and our strategies and programmes for achieving that objective. We must examine how the regional approach can contribute to our achieving that objective and reflect the results of that examination in the form of advice on regional programming. Finally, we must use these resources to reflect the special relationship which we have with the European Union.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the starting point of a very important exercise. The European Union and other donors will judge us on the basis of the quality of decisions which we make on this programming exercise. We must clearly demonstrate that we have the capacity to make quick, efficient and meaningful decisions affecting our own destiny.

Let us not disappoint our people and our Region.