CARI­COM Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett has called on the re­gion to deep­en uni­ty and col­lec­tive ac­tion as Caribbean states con­front the ef­fects of nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, geopo­lit­i­cal pres­sures and eco­nom­ic un­cer­tain­ty.

In her End of Year Mes­sage, ti­tled “Build­ing a Re­silient and Unit­ed Caribbean”, Dr Bar­nett said the chal­lenges faced by the Caribbean over the past year had ex­posed vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties but al­so re­in­forced the val­ue of re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion.

She point­ed to the dev­as­ta­tion caused by hur­ri­canes Beryl in 2024 and Melis­sa in 2025, which re­sult­ed in deaths and wide­spread dam­age in Ja­maica and Haiti, not­ing that re­cov­ery would re­quire sig­nif­i­cant time and re­sources.

Dr Bar­nett al­so cit­ed un­prece­dent­ed geopo­lit­i­cal head­winds that threat­ened ex­port earn­ings, re­gion­al peace and sov­er­eign­ty.

De­spite those pres­sures, she said the Com­mu­ni­ty demon­strat­ed re­silience by mo­bil­is­ing quick­ly to sup­port af­fect­ed Mem­ber States and adapt­ing to pro­tect busi­ness­es and liveli­hoods.

She high­light­ed progress in re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion, not­ing that Bar­ba­dos, Be­lize, Do­mini­ca, and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines moved to im­ple­ment full free move­ment of peo­ple among them­selves un­der the CARI­COM Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my, a step she said would strength­en eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty and peo­ple-to-peo­ple ties.

Dr Bar­nett said work on a com­pre­hen­sive CARI­COM In­dus­tri­al Pol­i­cy and Strat­e­gy was well ad­vanced, lay­ing the ground­work for stronger pro­duc­tive ca­pac­i­ty, in­no­va­tion and di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion across the re­gion.

In agri­cul­ture, she said the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the 25 by 2025+ ini­tia­tive con­tin­ued to boost pro­duc­tion, al­though hur­ri­canes and cli­mate-re­lat­ed events caused ma­jor set­backs for farm­ers and rur­al com­mu­ni­ties.

The Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al al­so point­ed to the re­gion’s cul­tur­al and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic achieve­ments, cit­ing CAR­IFES­TA XV in Bar­ba­dos in Au­gust and the peace­ful con­duct of gen­er­al elec­tions in sev­en Mem­ber States and four As­so­ciate Mem­bers dur­ing the year.

Dr Bar­nett said CARI­COM con­tin­ued to pri­ori­tise hu­man cap­i­tal de­vel­op­ment, with a fo­cus on ex­pand­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for young peo­ple and women to par­tic­i­pate more ful­ly in eco­nom­ic life, de­ci­sion-mak­ing and re­gion­al af­fairs.

Look­ing ahead, she said the Com­mu­ni­ty would con­tin­ue to ex­am­ine the im­pli­ca­tions of ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, ex­pand phys­i­cal and dig­i­tal con­nec­tiv­i­ty, strength­en dis­as­ter re­silience and ad­vance food and nu­tri­tion se­cu­ri­ty.

Dr Bar­nett com­mend­ed cit­i­zens across the re­gion, de­scrib­ing an en­gaged and em­pow­ered pop­u­la­tion as CARI­COM’s great­est as­set, and ex­pressed ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the work of the CARI­COM Sec­re­tari­at, re­gion­al in­sti­tu­tions, in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners, civ­il so­ci­ety, the pri­vate sec­tor, labour or­gan­i­sa­tions and the di­as­po­ra.

The Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al not­ed that de­ci­sions tak­en at meet­ings of the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment dur­ing the year, in­clud­ing those held in Bar­ba­dos in Feb­ru­ary and Ja­maica in Ju­ly, demon­strat­ed the re­gion’s com­mit­ment to co­or­di­nat­ed ac­tion on trade, se­cu­ri­ty, gov­er­nance, repa­ra­tions, hu­man de­vel­op­ment and cli­mate change.

“I in­vite all CARI­COM stake­hold­ers, in the Re­gion and be­yond, to move for­ward to­geth­er as we work to achieve our vi­sion of a ‘Com­mu­ni­ty for All’, that is re­silient, pros­per­ous and unit­ed,” Dr Bar­nett said.