In a press release Caricom said the Haitian government informed them of this decision following its mission to that nation on Saturday. The Caricom Mission was led by Chairman, and Prime Minister Dominica Roosevelt Skerrit, and included Caricom Secretary-General Edwin Carrington, Special Representative to Haiti Percival Patterson, Assistant Secretary-General, Foreign and Community Relations Colin Granderson, Executive Director of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency Jeremy Collymore and Acting Director of the Caricom Representative Office in Haiti Frantz Joseph. The team met with Haitian president Rene Preval and members of his cabinet including Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive and the ministers of foreign affairs, finance and health.
According to the release, during a visit to camp ‘Good Neighbour’ which houses the Jamaica-led Caricom contingent which includes personnel from 12 member states, Skerrit lauded Jamaica as “exceptional Ambassadors for CARICOM” for spearheading the Community’s initial response to the disaster. Carrington and Patterson echoed his sentiments and lauded Jamaica’s quick and efficient response to the crisis.
Caricom Heads of Government identified health as the primary, though not exclusive, focus of its intervention in the aftermath of the January 12 earthquake. As Haiti gradually moves to the recovery and reconstruction phase, the team told the Haitian officials that the emergence of Haiti as a model state and a symbol of what could be done through collaboration is at the heart of Caricom’s vision for its recovery and reconstruction. Preval told the team that there was a need to ensure better coordination during the recovery and reconstruction phase and that Caricom could help in this area.
The delegation also offered the view that Caricom could continue to effectively support Haiti’s recovery and reconstruction by assisting in the strengthening of the country’s depleted institutional capacity. The Haitian government has identified this area as one critical to its recovery and sees the mobilization of the Diaspora and the provision of technical support by Caricom as addressing the deficiency.
In the process the collaboration among Focal Points of the Sectoral Working Groups established by Haiti and the Caricom Secretariat’s Haiti Support Unit, which was set up following a mandate from the Bureau of the Conference of Heads of Government was also seen as essential. The meeting also identified a liaison role for the Caricom Representative Office in Haiti which was originally established with the help of CIDA to assist in preparing Haiti for participation in the CSME.
