The Trinidad-based Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) Im­ple­men­ta­tion Agency for Crime and Se­cu­ri­ty (IM­PACS) says it has of­fi­cial­ly be­gun the process of de­vel­op­ing a new CARI­COM Se­cu­ri­ty Strat­e­gy (CSS).

The agency said the CSS is be­ing de­vel­oped in “the face of in­ten­si­fy­ing se­cu­ri­ty threats and a rapid­ly evolv­ing geopo­lit­i­cal and geo-eco­nom­ic land­scape.”

It said an in­au­gur­al meet­ing of the CSS Steer­ing Com­mit­tee was held vir­tu­al­ly last week, “as a crit­i­cal step to­ward craft­ing a strate­gic, for­ward-look­ing and co­he­sive re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty frame­work that is re­spon­sive to cur­rent and fu­ture chal­lenges in the Caribbean re­gion.”

“The CSS will serve as the re­gion’s prin­ci­pal pol­i­cy in­stru­ment for guid­ing coun­tries, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al en­ti­ties in re­sponse to the grow­ing range of se­cu­ri­ty threats in the Caribbean,” CARI­COM IM­PACS said.

Ac­cord­ing to the agency, the strat­e­gy will re­flect cur­rent geopo­lit­i­cal re­al­i­ties, align with re­gion­al de­vel­op­ment pri­or­i­ties, and in­te­grate emerg­ing is­sues such as ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence (AI), while em­bed­ding rights-and-re­spon­si­bil­i­ty based ap­proach­es and pub­lic health-in­formed frame­works. It not­ed the new strat­e­gy al­so will dri­ve the mod­erni­sa­tion and strength­en­ing of na­tion­al and re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty in­sti­tu­tions to en­sure greater adapt­abil­i­ty, re­silience and ef­fec­tive­ness.

CARI­COM IM­PACS ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor, Lt. Col Michael Jones, said the cur­rent en­vi­ron­ment de­mands a re­cal­i­brat­ed and adap­tive re­gion­al strat­e­gy.

He said: “One that strength­ens our col­lec­tive ca­pac­i­ty to an­tic­i­pate, pre­vent and re­spond to mul­ti­di­men­sion­al threats.”

“The strat­e­gy must re­flect the ur­gency of this mo­ment while of­fer­ing prac­ti­cal so­lu­tions root­ed in Caribbean re­al­i­ties and aligned with evolv­ing glob­al norms,” he added.

The steer­ing com­mit­tee, es­tab­lished to guide the de­vel­op­ment of the CSS, in­cludes rep­re­sen­ta­tives from five CARI­COM mem­ber states, name­ly Bar­ba­dos, Guyana, Ja­maica, St. Lu­cia, and Trinidad and To­ba­go, as well as the chairs of the CARI­COM Stand­ing Com­mit­tees of Op­er­a­tional Heads (Po­lice, Mil­i­tary, Cus­toms, Im­mi­gra­tion, Pris­ons, and In­tel­li­gence).

It al­so brings to­geth­er key re­gion­al in­sti­tu­tions, in­clud­ing the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ); the Bar­ba­dos-based Re­gion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sys­tem (RSS); the Trinidad-based Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (CARPHA); the Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tion Coun­cil (CXC); the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of East­ern Caribbean States (OECS); and The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (The UWI).

Mem­bers of the pri­vate sec­tor, youth rep­re­sen­ta­tives, and civ­il so­ci­ety, as well as in­ter­na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment part­ners—such as Cana­da, the Unit­ed King­dom, the Eu­ro­pean Union, the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB) and the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank (CDB)—al­so are rep­re­sent­ed on the steer­ing com­mit­tee.

The act­ing as­sis­tant di­rec­tor of Pol­i­cy, Strat­e­gy and In­no­va­tion at CARI­COM IM­PACS, Cal­lix­tus Joseph, out­lined the core ra­tio­nale be­hind the re­newed strat­e­gy.

He said that the evolv­ing na­ture, scale, and com­plex­i­ty of to­day’s threats along­side the sig­nif­i­cant trans­for­ma­tion of the glob­al and re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty land­scape, re­quire new think­ing and strate­gic repo­si­tion­ing. He not­ed the CSS will pro­vide a for­ward-look­ing, ac­tion-ori­ent­ed roadmap.

“This strat­e­gy will serve as a uni­fy­ing frame­work to dri­ve smarter, faster, and more adap­tive re­spons­es to evolv­ing threats. It will har­ness the full po­ten­tial of fron­tier tech­nolo­gies such as AI, pre­dic­tive an­a­lyt­ics and dig­i­tal in­no­va­tion to strength­en na­tion­al and re­gion­al ca­pa­bil­i­ties and ac­cel­er­ate in­sti­tu­tion­al mod­erni­sa­tion,” he not­ed.

“Above all, it will reaf­firm CARI­COM’s un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to col­lec­tive se­cu­ri­ty as the cor­ner­stone of sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment, re­gion­al re­silience and a safer, more pros­per­ous fu­ture for all Caribbean cit­i­zens,” he added.

CARI­COM IM­PACS said that the CSS is an­tic­i­pat­ed to de­liv­er wide-rang­ing ben­e­fits across the Re­gion in­clud­ing crime re­duc­tion, im­proved pub­lic safe­ty, a stronger in­vest­ment cli­mate and greater re­gion­al in­flu­ence in glob­al se­cu­ri­ty gov­er­nance.

“By strength­en­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ca­pac­i­ties, mod­ernising in­fra­struc­ture, digi­tis­ing se­cu­ri­ty sys­tems and align­ing na­tion­al poli­cies with re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al com­mit­ments and frame­works, the strat­e­gy will equip mem­ber states to pre­vent, de­tect and re­spond to threats more ef­fec­tive­ly, while ad­vanc­ing sta­bil­i­ty, in­vestor con­fi­dence and col­lec­tive re­silience across the Caribbean.”

Dur­ing the vir­tu­al meet­ing, the mem­bers adopt­ed the Steer­ing Com­mit­tee’s Terms of Ref­er­ence (ToR), which out­lines its man­date to pro­vide strate­gic over­sight, pol­i­cy di­rec­tion and qual­i­ty as­sur­ance through­out the de­vel­op­ment process.

Trinidad and To­ba­go was elect­ed to serve as chair of the Com­mit­tee, with An­tigua and Bar­bu­da serv­ing as vice-chair.

“The Steer­ing Com­mit­tee is ex­pect­ed to meet pe­ri­od­i­cal­ly over the com­ing months as CARI­COM IM­PACS leads the CSS’s de­vel­op­ment. The fi­nal draft will be pre­sent­ed for en­dorse­ment by the Coun­cil for Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and Law En­force­ment (CON­SLE) and CARI­COM Heads of Gov­ern­ment.”

CARI­COM IM­PACS was es­tab­lished in 2006 as the im­ple­men­ta­tion arm of a new re­gion­al ar­chi­tec­ture to man­age CARI­COM’s ac­tion agen­da on crime and se­cu­ri­ty. —(CMC)