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A five-year EU-funded programme is helping to prevent blindness in some of the poorer countries of the Caribbean region; Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica and St. Lucia. It is being coordinated by the United Kingdom based Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Sightsavers International, with its partners in the Caribbean. The multi-faceted project is funding a range of measures from the training of...
Brussels was the location picked for the annual summit of the Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO), 13-15 March. The intention was to draw attention of the EU to the “critically important role of tourism in the region to livelihood and poverty alleviation,” said Hugh Riley Chief Executive Officer of the Barbados-based CTO which represents 33 member countries and many private sector...
Most visitors to the Caribbean are shocked that it costs just as much to travel by air between the tropical islands as it would to North America.  Is there any choice? More than ever before Caribbean nationals have been calling for improved connections between the islands, reduced taxes on travel and an informed policy on regional travel from Governments of the CARICOM[i] trading bloc....
The Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the 15 member states of the Caribbean Forum for African, Caribbean and Pacific states (CARIFORUM) is to date the only ‘full’ EPA signed with the European Union (EU). This is the reason why other ACP regions are examining its bottlenecks and benefits two years after coming on stream. Branford Isaacs, Head of the Guyana-based...
Three years after its launch, the initiative on a Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA) between the European Union and poor developing countries most vulnerable to climate change is on track. The GCCA intends to step up cooperation and dialogue between the EU and the developing countries that are hit earliest and hardest by climate change and have the least capacity to react. These are...
Caribbean’s private sector gets a boost Some leading International Financial Institutions have come together to set up a $US850M (€696M) action plan to boost private sector investment across the Caribbean region. The European Investment Bank (EIB), the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), the Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO), the International Finance Corporation (IFC)...
Eastern Caribbean farmers slate “done deal” A tariff deal between Latin American countries and the European Union (EU) in December 2009 in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Geneva hails the end of a 15-year banana trade dispute, one of the longest-ever global trade wars. Eastern Caribbean farmers hit out. The core of the deal agreed by the EU and Latin American Ambassadors...
After the severe economic crisis that affected Dominica in the late 1990s, successive governments have made notable efforts to provide a firm foundation for economic and political governance. These efforts were appreciated to such a degree, stresses Ambassador Valeriano Diaz, Head of the European Commission Delegation to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, that Dominica received a...
The Caribbean Export Development Agency (CEDA) is unique. It is the only region-wide export promotion body in the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of states. The 2008 signing of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the 15 member-state CARIFORUM* and the EU means new challenges. Set up in 1996 by CARIFORUM states, CEDA’s brief  is to strengthen...
“More and better policies” to boost regional integration in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) nations are recommended in a key paper of the European Commission’s Directorate General for Development released mid-September, with a call for the 27 EU Member States to back such policies more vigorously in their bi-lateral aid planning. © CONCORD Support for regional integration has been part and...