At the recent United Nations (UN) Small Island Developing States (SIDS) conference in Samoa, Oceania, Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Dookeran noted that conflicting interests make it difficult to work together in the theme of SIDS.He suggested looking to systemic problems that create the conditions in which we live, and whether Caribbean vulnerability comes from size, geography or structure.In release from the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Eclac), Dookeran said buffers to external shocks should be built by working together with development partners and international financial institutions."Size may well be an opportunity rather than a limitation," he said.
Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, Guyana's Minister of Foreign Affairs, said the Caribbean would need over 7 per cent growth to be sustainable.Last year the highest growth rate in the region was 5.3 per cent (in Guyana), according to Eclac's Economic Survey of Latin America and the Caribbean. Rodrigues-Birkett said the challenge was in diversifying Caribbean economies within the new global economic order to promote economic growth.Camillo Gonsalves, Minister of Foreign Affairs of St Vincent and the Grenadines, focused on the vulnerability of Caribbean SIDS to natural disasters and their impact on the economies."The impacts of natural disasters are eroding the gains in economic growth," he said, adding that because of their small gross domestic product (GDP), the islands are unable to finance adaptation and recovery from natural disasters and recommended regional integration, development financing, preferential trade and debt relief and restructuring to overcome vulnerability and small size.
Eclac said the "ministers conveyed that the human capital of the Caribbean needs to be recognised and public policy needs to be revolutionised.The political structure needs to be changed to build public policy."The meeting was the third international conference on SIDS to date. Remarks were made in a side event of the conference hosted by the Eclac in collaboration with the Caribbean Community (Caricom) secretariat.