Anguilla participated in the recently concluded 19th meeting of the Monitoring Committee of the Caribbean Development and Cooperation Committee (CDCC) held on May 17th, 2019 in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, attended by ministers and senior government officials from across the Caribbean. The CDCC was established in 1975, pursuant to ECLAC resolution 358(XVI), to promote and strengthen economic and social cooperation and integration among the countries of the Caribbean and to promote cooperation between them and the countries and integration processes of Latin America and the Caribbean.
The objectives of CDCC are:
To promote and strengthen economic and social cooperation and integration among the countries of the Caribbean and with Latin America.
To promote the sharing of information and experiences among its membership.
To promote common positions and strategies on economic and social issues among Caribbean nations, and on their relations with third countries, and to present those positions to international forums and agencies.
Addressing the high-level meeting was the Deputy Executive Secretary for Management and Programme Analysis of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Raúl García-Buchaca, who reiterated that ECLAC, continues to focus and assist on building the necessary skills and institutional capacity so that institutions with the responsibility for implementing sustainable development are better positioned to meet the challenges of integrated sectoral planning and policy coherence which are essential factors for the successful implementation of Agenda 2030.
The current Chair of the CDCC, Minister with Responsibility for External Affairs of Saint Lucia, Sarah Flood-Beaubrun, further underscored that “important takeaways from the sessions, the Learning Conference for Implementing the 2030 Agenda in the Caribbean Region, included the importance of institutional, operational and policy coherence for more effective integrated sustainable development planning; the value of a strong network of national focal points in this regard; the fact that there is no one-size-fits-all solution; the best fit for our own national circumstances, and the need to find innovative ways to strengthen our capacity for data capture and analysis to meet the monitoring and reporting obligations of the 2030 Agenda”.
The meeting called for the repositioning of vulnerable, indebted Caribbean Small Island Developing States (SIDS) on the path to sustainable development. Senior government representatives, economists, statisticians, non-governmental organization officials and civil society leaders discussed the importance of building stronger synergies between the agendas of SIDS and SDG implementation.
The efforts undertaken by ECLAC’s sub-regional headquarters for the Caribbean in this regards over the past twelve months were highlighted by Director of ECLAC Caribbean, Diane Quarless who underscored that “the Port of Spain team remains enthusiastic and committed to providing targeted and substantive support to meet the specific needs of their constituents in the Caribbean, having completed another year of initiatives in research, policy analysis, provision of technical assistance and building institutional capacity to advance the sustainable development process in the sub-region”.
In addition, Quarless reflected on ECLAC Caribbean’s contribution to the sub-region through strengthening the capacity of governments with targeted training and support activities, including in the areas of debt sustainability, disaster assessments and policy making.
Discussions also centred on the outcomes of the third meeting of the Forum of the Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean on Sustainable Development, which was held from 22-26 April 2019 in Santiago, Chile, during which authorities focused attention on the difficulties affecting the sub-region and acknowledged the shared limitations on development that still persist among Caribbean States.
The meeting also presented preparations for the High-Level Political Forum and SIDS Summit, which will take place during the 74th UN General Assembly later this year, during which the Caribbean will be raising the importance of empowering people, ensuring inclusiveness and promoting equality in building strategies to improve countries’ resilience.
As a follow-up from this meeting the Anguilla Statistics Department (ASD) will in the near future launch a campaign to share, inform and create discussion regarding the importance of the SDG and the need for mainstreaming them into national policies and intersectoral development plans, with the participation of government ministries, departments, non-governmental organisations, civil society and the private sector.
Anguilla was represented by Chief Statistician, Mrs. Lori-Rae Alleyne-Franklin of the Anguilla Statistics Department of the Government of Anguilla whose participation was made possible through the assistance of UNECLAC and the Government of Anguilla.
20th May
-Press Release
(Published without editing by The Anguillian newspaper)
