Even as the CARICOM region continues to experience a seeming slowdown in what, just months ago, had appeared to be an intensification of the pace towards the strengthening of its food security bona fides, CARIFORUM and the European Union (EU) have reportedly stepped in to ensure that the momentum that appeared to be picking up just months ago, does not disappear altogether.
Last week, news was circulating in the region that Agri-Food systems in the Caribbean were to benefit from a multi-million dollar ‘top up’, courtesy of the two entities.
The news of immediate-term interventions to pick up the pace of the region’s response to its food security challenges highlighted by the World Food Programme (WFP) several months ago coincided with what has been a recent dearth of information on the pace of progress towards the promised Regional Food Security Terminal, the creation of which was being spearheaded by Guyana and Barbados. The Observer report says that the EU and CARIFORUM “will work hand in hand with their respective national partners to target some of the most pressing bottlenecks to achieving a sustainable solution to food and nutrition security in the Caribbean region.” The report on the intervention by CARIFORUM and the EU states that the latter entity will provide 19 million pounds sterling, which, it says, will “enhance the resilience and sustainability of food systems in the Caribbean, promoting food and nutrition security, particularly for groups in vulnerable situations.”
The intervention is part of the EU’s larger €600 million effort to step up support to the most vulnerable African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries hit by the global food crisis. Regional watchers will be hoping that the recent intervention and the EU will serve to pick up the pace of a regional food security initiative undertaken by CARICOM member countries last year in the wake of concerns raised by the United Nations about the region’s food security bona fides. The Stabroek Business has continuously raised the dichotomy between the publicity that had initially attended the response to the UN’s food security warning and what, in recent months, has been a dearth of information from Guyana and Barbados, the ‘lead’ territories in the food security push following what had been a brisk start to the initiative. The last high-level regional agri-food event in the Bahamas has proven to be less than enlightening in upgrading Caribbean territories on the current state of the region’s overall food security bona fides.
The EU-CARIFORUM Food Security Programme was launched in Guyana last Thursday in the presence of CARICOM Secretary General of CARICOM/CARIFORUM, Dr. Carla Barnett, and Guyana’s Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha. Information published in the Observer released on the EU/CARIFORUM initiative indicated that the two will work to overcome its food security challenges the region must, among other things, take initiatives to realize “climate-smart production processes… efficient and reliable regional distribution mechanisms, healthy consumption patterns, and resilient social protection structures.”
