While ma­jor sport­ing events can cre­ate op­por­tu­ni­ties for eco­nom­ic growth, so­cial co­he­sion and in­ter­cul­tur­al un­der­stand­ing, they can al­so bring in­her­ent risks. 

This was the view of Her Ex­cel­len­cy Lil­ian Chat­ter­jee, High Com­mis­sion­er for Cana­da in Bar­ba­dos, who was de­liv­er­ing fea­ture re­marks at the open­ing of the Sub-re­gion­al Tech­ni­cal Ex­pert Meet­ing on “En­hanc­ing Se­cu­ri­ty Co­or­di­na­tion for Ma­jor Sport­ing Events in the Caribbean”.

The meet­ing is cur­rent­ly tak­ing place at the Na­tion­al Coun­cil on Sub­stance Abuse (NC­SA) in St. Michael, Bar­ba­dos. It will run from May 14 to 17, 2024.

Her Ex­cel­len­cy ob­served that sports con­tribute to na­tion build­ing and to fos­ter­ing iden­ti­ty, on a na­tion­al and re­gion­al lev­el, which she says are “defin­ing el­e­ments of a coun­try’s re­la­tion­ships, tourism in­dus­try and cul­tur­al diplo­ma­cy”.

She not­ed, how­ev­er, that large, high vis­i­bil­i­ty events such as the up­com­ing In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil (ICC) Men's T20 World Cup al­so mean high­er se­cu­ri­ty risks.

Ac­cord­ing to the Cana­di­an High Com­mis­sion­er, the cur­rent ex­pert meet­ing was time­ly.

“The re­gion re­quires co­or­di­nat­ed se­cu­ri­ty ef­forts to pro­tect against all kinds of threats,” she stat­ed. “En­sur­ing se­cu­ri­ty for all sev­en World Cup co-host­ing Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS) Mem­ber States. We re­quire ef­fec­tive co­op­er­a­tion and in­te­grat­ed poli­cies among co-host­ing coun­tries.” 

The Meet­ing is be­ing host­ed by the Sec­re­tari­at of the In­ter-Amer­i­can Com­mit­tee against Ter­ror­ism of the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS-CI­CTE), in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Unit­ed Na­tions In­ter­re­gion­al Crime and Jus­tice Re­search In­sti­tute (UNI­CRI), and the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty Im­ple­men­ta­tion Agency for Crime and Se­cu­ri­ty (CARI­COM IM­PACS), with fund­ing sup­port from the Gov­ern­ment of Cana­da. 

The pri­ma­ry ob­jec­tive of the Tech­ni­cal Ex­pert Meet­ing is to pro­vide sup­port for the se­cu­ri­ty plan­ning of the ICC Men's T20 World Cup, which takes place from 1 -29 June 2024, by fa­cil­i­tat­ing the ex­change of in­for­ma­tion and best prac­tices among the Caribbean Mem­ber States co-host­ing the World Cup.

She re­it­er­at­ed that the World Cup pre­sent­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty for host coun­tries to re­view and re­vise their safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty poli­cies and to ben­e­fit from co­op­er­a­tion net­works at the na­tion­al, re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al lev­els. 

“We all want to en­sure the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of the or­gan­is­ers, play­ers and the fans. This is why Cana­da is here to­day to sup­port the com­bined ef­forts of the OAS-CI­CTE, the UNI­CRI and CARI­COM IM­PACS to en­hance re­gion­al pre­pared­ness and re­silience prac­tices for the pro­tec­tion of crowd­ed spaces and vul­ner­a­ble tar­gets,” she added.

Her Ex­cel­len­cy’s sen­ti­ments were echoed by CARI­COM IM­PACS’ As­sis­tant Di­rec­tor for Cor­po­rate Ser­vices, Earl Har­ris.

The CARI­COM IM­PACS se­nior of­fi­cial point­ed out that crick­et was the one sport that pas­sion­ate­ly binds the en­tire Caribbean.

“Crick­et is much more than a sport for us in the Caribbean. It is a way of life. Crick­et tran­scends mere sport for us,” Har­ris said. 

“It serves as a sig­nif­i­cant ve­hi­cle for re­gion­al uni­ty, re­silience, and em­pow­er­ment. Crick­et stands as a sym­bol of our shared iden­ti­ty and her­itage, rep­re­sent­ing our col­lec­tive spir­it,” he not­ed.

How­ev­er, he warned that amidst the ex­cite­ment, every­one must re­main vig­i­lant against a range of po­ten­tial threats to the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of the event.

“This could dis­rupt the event and pose risks to the safe­ty of par­tic­i­pants and spec­ta­tors and dam­age the re­gion’s rep­u­ta­tion,” he warned. “Ad­dress­ing these is­sues is not just im­por­tant, it is es­sen­tial to safe­guard­ing the tour­na­ment's in­tegri­ty and pre­serv­ing lives and liveli­hoods.”

Earl Har­ris ad­vo­cat­ed for a col­lec­tive ef­fort in en­sur­ing the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of par­tic­i­pants and spec­ta­tors alike at the World Cup, which he said was cru­cial and of para­mount con­cern in an in­creas­ing­ly in­ter­con­nect­ed world.

Head of Op­er­a­tions for the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2024 at Crick­et West In­dies (CWI), KJ Singh, as­sured that the CWI is com­mit­ted to strength­en­ing the sport not on­ly through safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty, but al­so by an­ti-cor­rup­tion and drug-free en­ter­tain­ment.

He wel­comed the col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­forts at the Meet­ing, stat­ing:

“Strength­en­ing the game and en­sur­ing its in­tegri­ty and safe­ty is para­mount, first and fore­most, be­fore we even put play­ers, spec­ta­tors match of­fi­cials and me­dia on the field.”