Summit to have colossal benefits for the Caribbean
PORT SPAIN
Trinidad & Tobago Express
Petroleumworldtt.com
03 24 09
Summit insiders have disclosed that border protection against the trading of narcotics, Caricom-US trade relations, alternative energy sources and the development of a US policy in relation to the repatriation of deportees back to the Caribbean, are just a few of the relevant topics which will be on the table when the 34 heads of Government from within this hemisphere meet in less than a month in Port of Spain.
With less than four weeks left until this country hosts the Fifth Summit of the Americas, the Business Express had a tete a tete with Felipe Noguera , communications coordinator for the National Summit Secretariat.
Noguera who has been interfacing with the media on Summit related topics from day one knew the issues and came prepared to answer some of the tough questions.
When asked why we still decided to shoulder the burden of hosting the Summit after the country's oil revenues declined and the effect of the present global economic crisis hit us, Noguera said, "The Summit is even more necessary in the midst of the crisis."
He said that despite what the naysayers have been arguing the country needs to realise that the crisis is not only affecting the local community.
"It is affecting the whole world. The importance of this Summit to countries being affected, both large and small, rich and poor needs to be underscored and we need to understand it requires a collective response to get us out of this."
He said that despite the downturn, governments still needed to invest and gave the example of US President Barack Obama and his cabinet's move to inject billions of dollars into the US economy to help re-energise it, even though their finances and economy was actually harder hit than most, by this crisis.
"He is still spending enough to ensure that 1000 of his delegates come to Trinidad for this conference. This should go to show the importance of this gathering," said Noguera.
Still many have questioned what would make this Summit different? How would this one solve problems which the handful of others before this have not been able to effectively tackle?
Noguera responded, "The mere organization of this one, in terms of the Summit implementation review group and how focused it is on not only achieving measurable but implementable outcome and ensuring that follow up will take place after the summit."
"That, plus the fact that we are not facing the same types of schisms and antagonistic contradictions that marked previous summits, such as the ones in Quebec and Argentina. Back then you had very strong anti-globalisation and anti-free trade summits, violently in some cases, but free trade is not on the agenda in this Summit. This Summit is dealing with human issues and so there is a parallelism of interests between the Summit, the pre-Summit parallel forums (Private Sector, Civil Society and Youth ) and the so-called People's Summit which are all being organised at present. But this time they are not in conflict with one another, instead they are attempting to compliment each other."
Noguera believes that the gravity of the present economic circumstances makes it compulsory for the Summit Secretariat and the country to say failure or complacency is not an option.
He told the Business Express, "No one can afford a talk shop anymore, the governments involved will be judged by their populations on how they carry out and follow up on the mandates they get from the pre summit activities and from the Summit."
While he said it is up to the Governments to decide what they take home from the Summit, he said the Summit support team is molding it to be a launch pad for new hemispheric, and multilateral collaboration.
"We are hoping it is the start of ongoing exchanges between the heads of government and the people within the region."
Noguera said he regrets the fact that some may see the Summit as a "Summit for the rich people."
But he maintains that is not the case.
"It is for all the people, to ensure that their concerns, their interests and their needs are dealt with," he explained.
He said the benefits of the Summit can be colossal for the Caribbean as the region will have the ear of the US Administration.
"One of the advantages of being host will not only be that our head is the chair person, setting the pace to some extent, but we have the best opportunity to conduct bilateral meetings with any of the leaders who are here. Caricom will be ideally poised to interface with the administration from the US which is our largest market."
He said an issue which is a collective concern for the Caribbean is the lack of relevant dialogue in regards to the repatriation of persons who have committed crimes overseas.
Noguera said, "We are not given any prior notification about the repatriation of deportees. Maybe there should be some policy from the US in particular, where they notify the Caribbean authorities on people returning here, cause otherwise they leave people without any options."
He said this becomes a social and economic problem particularly because some deportees have no family and no social security network to fall on.
He then said a Summit adds some weight to the hope that the hemisphere can address this topic and other issues in a more multilateral manner as time goes on.
Story by Aretha Welch from Trinidad & Tobago
Express
Trinidad & Tobago Express
Thursday, March 19th 2009
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