By CARICOM
Photos: CARICOM\Facebook
The following speech was given by CARICOM Secretary General Dr. Carla Brown to commemorate Africa-CARICOM Day 2024:
- Honourable Kerrie Symmonds, Senior Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of Barbados;
- His Excellency David Comissiong, Plenipotentiary Representative of the Government of Barbados to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM);
- Mr. Okechukwu Ihejirika, Acting Chief Operating Officer, Caribbean Office, Afreximbank;
- Ms. Ashley Lashley, CARICOM Youth Ambassador;
- Distinguished Guests;
- Members of the Media;
- Ladies and Gentlemen.
I am pleased to join you as we mark Africa-CARICOM Day 2024 here in Barbados. This special day is testimony to the bonds of ancestry and friendship that unite our Regions and highlights our shared commitment to fostering a future based on mutual interests and solidarity.
The significance of this commemoration is rooted in the landmark First Africa-CARICOM Summit held on 7 September 2021. This historic meeting of leaders from the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the African Union focused on charting a new course to address common challenges, and taking advantage of opportunities for reciprocal benefit and growth. Our leaders articulated a vision of a shared prosperous future built on broadened economic relations and enhanced people to people contact, through increased trade, investment, and air and maritime links.
The establishment last year of a CARICOM Office of the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) in Barbados, to provide access to financing for trade across a diverse range of sectors, was a welcomed development in consolidating progress towards the vision articulated by our leaders.
In collaboration with Afreximbank, the Governments of Barbados in 2022 and Guyana in 2023, hosted AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forums. This year, it was hosted by the Government of The Bahamas along with the Afreximbank Annual Meetings, held for the first time in a CARICOM country. These important engagements serve to catalyze business and investment links between our Regions, while providing a platform for dialogue and negotiation. The facilitation of new trade and investment initiatives, and the encouragement of joint ventures have generated meaningful partnerships and economic benefits for both CARICOM and Africa.
Engagement at the political level has also continued, as demonstrated by the Inaugural CARICOM-South Africa Ministerial Meeting in March 2024.
Looking ahead, there are several key sectors for future and continued cooperation, including health, education, culture and tourism, as well as regional institution-building. This includes the signature of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the secretariats of the African Union and CARICOM which will provide a formal mechanism for coordination of joint activities and programmes, including especially, the next summit meeting between the leaders of our two regions. The MOU is already agreed and is awaiting formal signature to bring it into force.
There is much to do together. Referencing CARICOM’s call to European colonizers for reparatory justice for centuries of crimes against humanity committed in our Region, both CARICOM and Africa have an indisputable and significant claim to reparations for the egregious trans-Atlantic trade in enslaved Africans, centuries of chattel slavery and genocide of indigenous peoples of the Region. Both Regions are advocating for tangible actions to address the injustices of colonialism and chattel slavery. On this, it is important that we speak with one voice. The shared commitment to reparatory justice is more than a moral imperative.
As we commemorate Africa-CARICOM Day, we celebrate the sterling achievements of our brothers and sisters at home and in the diaspora and affirm our dedication to strengthening our partnership based on the foundation principles of Pan-Africanism. Our shared future holds immense promise, and by working together, we can ensure that the bond between Africa and the Caribbean remains vibrant, resilient and transformative for generations to come.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
Read also: An Africa-CARICOM Day Message from the CARICOM Reparations Commission.
