The appointment of Dr Carla Barnett as the next Secretary General of CARICOM should be an inflection point; a moment when the institution, and more importantly its member states rise to the challenge of delivering the post-pandemic decisions that could propel the regional integration process into the 21st Century.
Whether Dr Barnett, importantly the first woman and the first Belizean to lead the regional institution, can negotiate a way out of the organisation’s inability to act because of its lack of executive authority, candidly explain, or find a way around commitments that are made at summit after summit and then not delivered by its member states, time will tell.
However, it would be good to assume that her appointment is rather more than ‘historic’ and will have real substance when she takes up the post in mid-August.