Category: OECS Secretariat

MEDIA ADVISORY: 46th Meeting of COTED

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The Forty-Sixth Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) will be held in Georgetown, Guyana, 16-17 May, 2018.

Matters to be addressed by the Ministers with responsibility for trade include the implementation of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME), trade in goods, and external economic relations, such as future trade with the United Kingdom after BREXIT.

Representatives of the Media are invited to cover the following:

EVENT: Opening Ceremony, Forty-Sixth Meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED)

DATE: 16 May, 2018

VENUE: CARICOM Secretariat, Georgetown, Guyana

TIME: 9:30 am

Kindly make every effort to be present by at least 15 minutes before the start of the ceremony for timely coverage of the event.

William G. Demas Memorial Lecture to focus on social impact of natural disasters

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Professor Mark Pelling of King’s College London will deliver the 19th William G. Demas Memorial Lecture during CDB’s Annual Meeting in Grenada. (Photo via CDB)

The social impact of natural disasters will come into focus when Professor Mark Pelling of King’s College London delivers the 19th William G. Demas Memorial Lecture on May 29 in Grenada. The highly regarded researcher will speak on the topic, “From Social Resilience to Survivor-Led Reconstruction” at the event, which is part of the agenda of the Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB).

Scheduled to take place at St. George’s University, the prestigious Lecture will feature Pelling taking a fresh look at resilience and reconstruction and examining the often-overlooked social dimensions of natural disasters in his keynote speech. More than 200 delegates attending CDB’s Annual Meeting, officials from the Government of Grenada and representatives from academia are expected to attend.

Pelling, who has widely researched and published work on the topic of resilience, is the author of 80 peer-review papers and book chapters, and seven books, including Adaptation to Climate Change: From Resilience to Transformation and The Vulnerability of Cities: Social Resilience and Natural Disaster.

Read more at: Caribbean Development Bank

In St. Kitts and Nevis, Commonwealth SG talks of helping SIDS build climate resilience

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Prime Minister of St. Kitts and Nevis, the Hon. Timothy Harris and Commonwealth Secretary-General, Baroness Patricia Scotland (Photo via Office of the Prime Minister)

BASSETERRE, ST. KITTS, MAY 2ND, 2018 (PRESS SEC) – St. Kitts and Nevis’ Prime Minister, Dr. the Honourable Timothy Harris, met with Rt. Hon. Patricia Scotland QC today, Wednesday, May 2nd, 2018, at Government Headquarters. The Prime Minister’s discussion with the Commonwealth Secretary-General was informed by their shared values and concern for Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

Rt. Hon. Patricia Scotland QC, who was born in Dominica, began her Caribbean tour on Monday ahead of the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1st through November 30th.

Following today’s meeting with Prime Minister Harris, the Commonwealth Secretary-General held a Press Conference at Government Headquarters, where she updated members of the local media on the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) that was held last month in London.

“The Commonwealth Heads of Government concentrated a lot on small states and also climate change, and the intense vulnerability that small island states face as a result of climate [change],” Rt. Hon. Patricia Scotland QC said, adding, “It poses an existential threat.”

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No justice in de-banking Caribbean countries, says Antigua and Barbuda PM

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Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, the Hon Gaston Browne

GROS ISLET, St Lucia — There is no justice in the de-banking and barring of small Caribbean states from the international payment system, said Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister Gaston Browne, who has lead responsibility for financial matters in the quasi-Cabinet of Caribbean Community (CARICOM) heads of government.

The prime minister was speaking at a forum in Saint Lucia on Thursday organised by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

“De-banking and de-risking undermines the ability of small countries to meet their development agenda and injures them without any mechanism for remedy”, Browne told the audience of fellow Caribbean prime ministers, central bank and financial officials and private sector representatives.

Read more at: Caribbean News Now

Hub and Spokes Programme: providing critical Trade Support to Caribbean economies

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Regional Workshop participants following the opening ceremony on Monday

Georgetown, Guyana (April 23, 2018) – Caribbean development partners and beneficiaries of the Hub and Spokes Programme, an aid-for-trade initiative, began a three-day regional planning workshop (April 23 – 25), with appreciation of the programmes tangible impact on the ground. The workshop is being held at the Guyana Marriott Hotel Georgetown, Guyana.

Caribbean Country beneficiaries and Advisers will work to develop a new framework that is likely to govern the implementation and management of a successor Programme. The proposed framework will aim to support sustainable and inclusive development through technical assistance and capacity-building in international trade.

The Hub and Spokes programme is a multi-donor aid-for-trade initiative of the European Union, the African, Caribbean and Pacific states (ACP) Group Secretariat, the Commonwealth Secretariat and the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF). Its current implementation phase in the regions ends in August 2018.

With the current programme coming to an end, the Regional Planning Meeting proposed that a successor programme should build upon current best practice and incorporate new and emerging trade-related issues into a future work programme. The framework should also be localised into the Caribbean context, to capture and contribute to regional priorities relating to trade and development.

See more photos here (more…)