Save and except for the purpose of summit meetings of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Heads of Government of the region rarely congregate in any one member country. They are, each of them, usually preoccupied with their own domestic issues which, invariably, have a direct bearing on their particular social, economic and political challenges. In such circumstances wider regional challenges can become a distraction though this is not to say that there are not, frequently, strong linkages between domestic challenges and regional ones. As it happens the issue of addressing regional food security concerns is a common one.
The staging of what is being termed the Investing in Vision 25 by 2025 forum (25 x 2025) or the CARICOM Agri Investment Forum and Expo at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre is not just a reflection of the country’s pre-eminent position as the agricultural hub of the region. It is, as well, a reflection of the continuing transformation of Guyana’s image in the region, a circumstance that derives from its new-found status as an oil-producing country and as a magnet for both regional and extra regional investment.
The staging of the 25 x 2025 Forum and Expo here, is, as well, both an acknowledgement of Guyana’s role as the looked-to country in CARICOM insofar as regional food security is concerned as well as a recognition that, going forward, Guyana is now better positioned than it has been, previously, to ‘lead that charge’. In passing, one should add that the slogan serves as a far from complimentary reminder of the protracted delinquency of the region in the execution of its food security responsibilities, a circumstance that has now become sufficiently unacceptable to have created the need for the setting of a timeline for the creation of a more acceptable balance between the volumes of food that we import as against what we produce here in the region.
We must hope, of course, that the forum’s theme does not end up being a mere catchphrase, bandied about inside the Arthur Chung Conference Centre in keeping with the proclivity in the region for crafting critical missions around eye-catching slogans that eventually disappear down black holes, the hype and hoopla often having little if any bearing on the substantive issue facing us.
So that as the CARICOM Heads who are reportedly coming to Georgetown and the various other delegates, experts and specialists, doubtless, among them, share their respective perspectives, we must hope that history does not repeat itself and that the vision of 25 by 2025 not become reduced to a slogan, detached from the substantive objective of the forum, which, as we understand it is, hopefully, a precursor to the realization of a sustainable regimen of food security in the region.
If the deliberations that will ensue are to amount to anything, in the longer term, the forum has to find a way of separating the region from its customary posturing and from the various earlier ‘food security’ grand gestures that have led nowhere. 25 x 2025 must leave behind the region’s perplexing proclivity for repeatedly failing itself. Rhetoric that is bereft of any kind of related substantive intention must not ring hollow inside the Arthur Chung Conference Centre long after the assembled Heads of Governments and assorted delegations have returned from whence they came.
In the course of the 25 x 2025 deliberations the assembled delegates, led by the Heads of Government must create roadmaps for forward movement, attended by iron-clad timelines and which benefit from monitoring mechanisms that ensure that there is minimal lagging in pursuit of those timelines. These can only be realized if the monitoring mechanisms are placed in the hands of institutions in the various CARICOM territories that have both the professional capability and the attendant discipline to effectively execute what is, in fact, a critical function. Beyond that such understandings and conclusions as are reached must be attended by mechanisms to ensure accountability for ensuring effective implementation.
In the matter of regional food security 25 x 2025 is an opportunity for us to get something right…for a change.
