Since his accession to the executive directorship of the Caribbean Export Development Agency (Caribbean Export), Deodat Mahraj, a former Deputy Secretary General of the Commonwealth, has been affording readers in the region exposure to some interesting ‘takes” on issues that have to do with Caribbean Development.
Whether or not his perspective on these issues finds a place at the policy consideration table, either at the level of individual Caribbean Community member states or at the level of the institution of the Caribbean Community, where, presumably, there is some kind of convergence of thinking, is difficult to tell.
Experience, one expects, would have taught us by now that while ‘the Community’ is held out as a symbol of regional cohesiveness, governance at the individual country level is almost always driven by the axiom that the individual will to survive considerably exceeds the collective will to succeed. CARICOM, in the heat of that survival struggle can sometimes be a mere chimera.
A few things about Caribbean governments, which are, in effect the collective CEO of CARICOM, are unmistakably apparent. First, their track record for matching rhetoric with actualisation on some issues has been, to say the least, distressingly poor. The various undertakings that have to do with enhancing food security by creating a robust agricultural sector, for example, have been nothing but a litany on unfulfilled promises. The current, much talked-about US$5 billion plus regional food import bill is testimony to those successive empty promises of Caribbean governments to invest in the creation of a robust agriculture/agro-processing sector.
Since it continues to be apparent that “Caribbean integration” has always been trumped by the reality of the national will to survive subsuming the regional will to succeed, then there is always likely to be a measure of weakness in the rhetoric about Caribbean unity. There is, unquestionably, a certain level of superficiality to the whole unity assertion since the iron-clad domestic policies of the respective member countries sculpted out of the reality of their various domestic circumstances will always cause the feet of the respective member governments to be anchored to the ground.
In the matter of enhancing regional food security, the Community has been drifting in the opposite direction, running up food import bills that are patently unaffordable whilst making no serious effort, bar the shouting, to reverse the volumes of imports by moving to work together to strengthen the fabric of regional food security.
Here, individual countries, not least Guyana, have been guilty of failing to ‘push the pace’ of regional food security, an obligation that derives from our self-acknowledged position as the ‘lead country’ in the region on agriculture. Indeed, we must wait and see whether the most recent set of high-sounding pronouncements that emanated from the recent engagement between President Ali and Prime Minister Mottley will metamorphose into any kind of meaningful action or whether, the discourses having ended, the two governments will not – as has been customary, over the years – resume an ‘as you were’ posture.
In the fullness of time, frankly, sooner rather than later, the region and particularly Guyana, will awaken to the reality that our oil wealth and its attendant portents are likely, at some point in the not too distant future, to be ‘trumped’ by the reality of climate change. That reality may well account for what has been the well-publicised commitments in the field of agriculture that arose out of the recent engagement between President Ali and Prime Minister Mottley. Who knows whether it will be the looming threat of climate change rather than any inherent determination on the part of CARICOM member countries that will push us in the direction of building a regional agricultural base which, up until now, continues to elude us.
In one of his more recent articles on issues impacting the region Mr. Maraj is advocating greater support for and recognition of MSMEs which he asserts is “the backbone of Caribbean economies.” Outside of agriculture regional MSME’s include enterprises in the agro-processing and related sectors which are no less important to the region in the areas of employment and the enhancement of food security than is agriculture. Significantly, the advent of COVID-19, while it has had a telling impact on agriculture and related sectors as a whole, has actually brought out ‘the champion’ in many of our local farmers and agro-processors, in some instances with little if any official support. This much is evidenced in the steely determination of our local farmers and middlemen to get their products to market during the challenging COVID-19 period and the sheer will being demonstrated by agro-processors who continue to produce high quality products for local and external markets.
Setting aside the litany of serious challenges that continue to confront the agriculture and agro-processing sectors, the two continue to seek to make a compelling even if not yet realised case for food security in Guyana. Contextually, and in the face of the resource deficiencies that seriously limit its ability to respond adequately to the material and other needs of MSMEs, government, up until now, appears decidedly disinclined to properly empower the Small Business Bureau to do so. That has to change or else we will remain on a hiding to nowhere.
Perhaps it is time, after all, that Caribbean governments talk less and listen much more if they are serious about saving the region.
