Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The re­gions of Africa and the Caribbean must no longer stand apart but unite against the lega­cy of in­equities and fur­ther de­sign in­sti­tu­tions that fos­ter in­te­gra­tion, re­silience, and pros­per­i­ty, says An­tigua and Bar­bu­da Prime Min­is­ter Gas­ton Browne.

Browne is al­so rec­om­mend­ing an Africa-Cari­com coali­tion for air con­nec­tiv­i­ty in­vest­ment. He made the call yes­ter­day at the Sec­ond Africa-Cari­com sum­mit in Ad­dis Aba­ba, Ethiopia.

Browne, who was the chair­man of the first Africa-Cari­com Sum­mit in 2021, told at­ten­dees that lead­ers had agreed in 2021, “...that our re­gions must no longer stand apart but unite against the lega­cy of in­equities and fur­ther de­sign in­sti­tu­tions that fos­ter in­te­gra­tion, re­silience, and pros­per­i­ty.”

Among com­mit­ments was the recog­ni­tion of Sep­tem­ber 7th as Africa-Caribbean Day and chart­ing a course to­wards air ser­vice agree­ments, in­vest­ment pro­tec­tion, dou­ble tax­a­tion treaties, and visa waivers to ex­pand trade and peo­ple-to-peo­ple ties.

Browne said, “To­day, this sec­ond sum­mit gives us the op­por­tu­ni­ty to turn these com­mit­ments in­to ac­tion.”

On the sum­mit’s theme is­sue of repa­ra­tions, Browne said, “This is not about race, creed, or di­vi­sion it is about jus­tice. The wealth of the Glob­al North was built on the backs of en­slaved Africans and their de­scen­dants. Repa­ra­tions must, there­fore, be root­ed in ac­knowl­edg­ment and apol­o­gy, but ex­tend be­yond words to in­clude in­vest­ments in ed­u­ca­tion, health, tech­nol­o­gy, cli­mate re­silience, and cul­tur­al re­new­al.”

He added, “Repa­ra­tions aren’t a plea for pity. They are a de­mand for fair­ness, for cor­rect­ing his­toric im­bal­ances in fi­nance, trade, and gov­er­nance...

“Yet even as we recog­nise these truths, we face a chal­lenge greater than re­sources or skills; it is the chal­lenge of po­lit­i­cal will. Too of­ten, we have al­lowed hes­i­ta­tion to paral­yse ac­tion. Too of­ten, elo­quence in speech­es has not been matched by courage in deeds. Let this sum­mit be re­mem­bered as the mo­ment we turned the tide when Africa and the Caribbean chose uni­ty over frag­men­ta­tion, ac­tion over in­er­tia, and courage over com­pla­cen­cy.”

Browne al­so rec­om­mend­ed ac­tion in three ar­eas. On con­nec­tiv­i­ty, he sug­gest­ed use of the Air Peace, Ghana Air and Ethiopi­an Air­lines, with even one week­ly flight.

“If this re­quires sub­si­dies from a coali­tion of Cari­com states, in­vest­ment should be done. The cost of in­ac­tion is far high­er than the price of a sub­sidised route. That sin­gle flight will car­ry not on­ly pas­sen­gers but the promise of ex­pand­ed trade, cul­tur­al ex­change, tourism, and in­vest­ment. It will link fam­i­lies di­vid­ed by his­to­ry and re­con­nect com­mu­ni­ties across the At­lantic ...” Browne added.

“If a coali­tion of states must sub­sidise it, let us do so. The sym­bol­ic and strate­gic val­ue of that sin­gle flight will out­weigh its costs. It will car­ry not just pas­sen­gers, but pos­si­bil­i­ties for our col­lec­tive ad­vance­ment.”

Browne urged a trade and in­vest­ment pref­er­en­tial agree­ment for the com­bined mar­kets rep­re­sent­ing 1.5 bil­lion peo­ple. He rec­om­mend­ed Africa’s grains, tex­tiles, fruits, and en­er­gy flow in­to the Caribbean and re­gion­al rum, sug­ar, spices, tourism, and cre­ative prod­ucts find mar­kets in Africa. He al­so sug­gest­ed an Africa-Caribbean Aca­d­e­m­ic Net­work for youths.

Part­ner­ship ur­gent af­ter in­ter­na­tion­al changes—Cari­com SG

Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nette cit­ed the po­ten­tial in the grow­ing Africa-Cari­com part­ner­ship.

“Fur­ther so­lid­i­fy­ing this part­ner­ship would stand as tes­ta­ment to the enor­mous ben­e­fits of South-South co­op­er­a­tion, which has be­come an ur­gent ne­ces­si­ty giv­en the rapid changes in the in­ter­na­tion­al or­der. It al­so re­flects the re­al­i­ty of our con­tem­po­rary world,” Bar­nette said.

“We stand to­day as a bloc of de­vel­op­ing na­tions de­ter­mined to se­cure a pros­per­ous fu­ture for our peo­ple. We recog­nise but are un­daunt­ed by the chal­lenges ahead of us, for we recog­nise that our com­bined strength is a for­mi­da­ble as­set,” Bar­nette added.

Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley, in a so­cial me­dia post, said it was the first in-per­son Africa-Cari­com sum­mit. She not­ed that on her ar­rival, oth­er Cari­com lead­ers there were Prime Min­is­ters Dick­on Mitchell (Grena­da), Ter­rence Drew (St Kitts/Nevis), An­tigua’s Browne, Philip Davis (Ba­hamas), and Ralph Gon­salves (St Vin­cent/Grenadines).

T&T’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives at the sum­mit were the For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­istry’s deputy per­ma­nent sec­re­tary and di­rec­tor of Cari­com Af­fairs. For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers didn’t re­ply to Guardian Me­dia’s texted queries on what is­sues T&T’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives spoke on, its po­si­tion on dis­cus­sions and if rep­re­sen­ta­tives were net­work­ing for T&T with in­ter­na­tion­al bank­ing and oth­er lead­ers at the sum­mit.