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• 'Small states, big spirits' - the Caribbean in the Commonwealth

'Small states, big spirits' - the Caribbean in the Commonwealth

Date: 8 Feb 2007
Speaker: Secretary-General Don McKinnon
Location: University of the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica

Thank you for the opportunity to speak. One thing we can take for granted is that the TV news around the world this evening while we are here will be dominated by events in a few big countries. We all know who they are. And more recently, we’ve come to hear about the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) – the next bracket of big countries. Regretfully, the only time small countries like yours or my home country – New Zealand – are heard about in the media is usually for reasons which we’d rather not know.

Hence we in small states do have to make up for our size with a big spirit. And hence the title of my address to you tonight, ‘Small states, big spirits – the Caribbean in the Commonwealth’.

And tonight I am not talking of just one Caribbean Island, but of the 12 Caribbean States who are members of the Commonwealth. Most small; all with big passion, and big spirits.

The Jamaican Reggae Boyz set the stage when they made it to France in 1998. The spirit rose again when your friends in Trinidad and Tobago – the Soca Warriors – made it to the World Cup last year. That 0-0 draw against Sweden on the second day of the tournament was a huge triumph. In fact I’d say that the whole World Cup was a triumph for ‘small states big spirits’.

And with another World Cup coming up in March – this time cricket – I have high hopes for the Windies. But more cricket later.

This University is a beacon of academic excellence, for the benefit of some 40,000 young people, in the Caribbean and beyond. As your motto says, ‘A light rising from the West’ – and I wish each and every one of you well in your time here and later. In a Commonwealth in which 30 million children never see the inside of a primary school, and another 40 million miss out on secondary school, you are the very lucky ones. I say use what you are being given here: and give some of it back.

Many before you have ‘risen from the west’ in the Caribbean and shone internationally, including on the Commonwealth.

I think of the legendary Sir Sonny Ramphal – a vice-chancellor of this university and a predecessor as Commonwealth Secretary-General from 1975 to 1990. The people of the Commonwealth, and above all those of an independent Zimbabwe and a post-apartheid South Africa, owe him a great debt.

So, too, Professor Rex Nettleford, of whom The Jamaica Gleaner says that he ‘breathes life into this land of wood and water’. Rex is currently a member of the Commonwealth’s Commission on Respect and Understanding. It’s chaired by Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen; it’s looking at ways that the Commonwealth can bring together communities and people of different faiths, ethnicity, and other differences. We want to see what works in one corner of the Commonwealth, and whether it can work in another.

Also there is the Most Honourable PJ Patterson who chairs our committee on whether, and on what terms, the Commonwealth should accept new members. Mozambique and Cameroon were the last to join us, in 1995. We have a queue of prospective new members – it’s a sign of our health and relevance.

Your Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller was extremely active with the Commonwealth Local Government Forum.

I can go on. The point is simple: Jamaica and the Caribbean have made enormous contributions to the Commonwealth.

CARICOM is a Caribbean community – and it’s about that community that I would like to talk in more detail this evening, looking at the challenges you face, and also why and how the Commonwealth stands with you.

It’s my contention that you are an integral part of this 53-nation family, which comprises a third of the world’s population, a quarter of the world’s countries, and a fifth of its trade. Rich, poor. Young, old. Skins of every colour. Christian, Muslim, Hindu. African, Asian, Pacific, European – and Caribbean. All are home in the Commonwealth.

My premise in this speech is that your greatest challenges are those of most small states. Half of all member states of the UN are small states. Similarly, 26 of our 53 Commonwealth members have populations of less than a million people, and - in the Caribbean - only Jamaica and Trinidad have more. You are blessed with many things here – not least the warmth of the sun and the warmth of your people – but history has dealt the Caribbean several difficult hands. One of those – one which persists – is your very small-ness.

Small States are notoriously vulnerable. The global development community now accepts that there is a science to the way we look at and assist ‘Small States’, and that the Commonwealth, working alongside the World Bank, is pioneering it.

In 2000 we jointly identified the way the cards are stacked against Small States, and the way they suffer from their remoteness, their susceptibility to natural disasters, their limited institutional capacity, and their limited potential for economic diversification. Five years later, further studies revealed that those problems are now even more acute – with GDP declining, cash flows volatile, agriculture and merchandising in decline, and investment seemingly stagnant. And new concerns have arisen, like the removal of trade preferences for traditional exports like bananas and sugar, and rising concerns over youth unemployment, crime, HIV/AIDS, and the drain on scarce resources to meet new security demands post 9/11.

Each of us will have different statistics to quantify each of those things. One that I regularly repeat concerns Barbados and its sugar: by 2010 the EU will have cut 40% off the price of the sugar it imports from there. The fact is, that everything I have just said applies, to a greater or lesser extent, to the Caribbean. These ‘Small State’ challenges must sound very familiar, the world over. For all the proven and undoubted resilience and ingenuity of Small States, theirs is never an easy lot.

So, having set the scene, I would like to turn to four specific thoughts for you to think about:

· One and Two, to look further at the ‘Small State’ economic and social challenges you’re facing.

· Three, to look at the democratic challenges which in some ways determine how you meet the economic and social ones.

· Fourth and finally, to look further at the challenges you face as a region.

Economic Challenges

First, then, the economic challenges.

It’s trade that is the key to overturning economic ills, creating new jobs and livelihoods. It is part of the key to overturning social ills, too. We are at the forefront of your efforts to make trade work for the Caribbean. We do so at all levels.

First, at the global level, by lobbying relentlessly for the Doha Development Agenda. In Valletta in late 2005, our 53 countries spoke as one to give genuine and sustained momentum to the Doha negotiations. Rich and poor Commonwealth countries alike agreed on detailed political commitments in that statement, which other organizations have been unable to match. Some member countries signed that declaration against their own vested interests, but they did so for the common good of global development. We still haven’t broken the logjam on Doha – the EU, the US, Japan must all give more. So, too, very soon, must fast-emerging countries like India with their industrial goods. But I am confident. No one can afford the Doha Round to fail – politically or economically.

Commonwealth leaders have also pledged to give ‘aid for trade’: for if markets are open and rules established for all, there will be those who can’t simply compete, or at least not for now. Hence our commitment to phased and calibrated change in opening markets, coupled with drafting new legislation and training in new procedures, as well as helping countries diversify. We believe in a ‘leg-up’ for those with the greatest need.

I personally have long been batting alongside you on this front. One moment the international community forces you to diversify…. and then, when you do so into areas like financial services as was the case in 2000, the OECD then imposed punitive conditions on you, concerning tax compliance. I told them very publicly that it wasn’t good enough – others backed that campaign – and the OECD duly responded in a more conciliatory and productive way.

Similarly, we are assisting the coordination of the group of five ACP countries which are currently negotiating the Economic Partnership Agreements with the EU. That group, under the leadership of Dame Billie Miller of Barbados, also includes Mauritius, Fiji, Cameroon and Botswana. The EPAs are partly about opening up markets, and partly about promoting development, in other words, a country’s capacity to produce and to trade. You simply can’t argue this case on your own – but with the Commonwealth’s supportive hand, and the solidarity of other Commonwealth ACP members – you can and I believe you will. At the end of last year, for instance, we organized for the group to come and present their case to UK Ministers in London and Germany is also involved in this engagement.

Second, we work with you on trade at the regional and local level, with a Commonwealth trade advisor in the CARICOM and OECS secretariats, helping formulate trade policy for WTO negotiations; and with Commonwealth trade advisers working in the trade ministries of six Commonwealth countries. We also give special advice on ‘life after trade preferences’, and new export strategies, particularly those built around services which are less vulnerable to transport and infrastructure costs, such as finance, insurance, health, education, e-commerce. We held a major Caribbean workshop on this last May.

Because it is economic growth – with new jobs – that is the best hope of the Small State. Look at Singapore: I know how Owen Arthur, for instance, looks at successes in other parts of the world, and asks how he can replicate them.

It’s why so many of our Commonwealth efforts are purely and simply designed to stimulate growth. At the macro-level, that’s why some $40 million has come into the Caribbean through the Commonwealth Private Investment Initiative.

At the micro-level, it’s why we train entrepreneurs and give seed funding to youth enterprises; and it’s why Commonwealth analysis and then funding is going into things like the revitalisation of Grenada’s nutmeg industry in the wake of Hurricane Ivan, or into Barbados’ agro-tourism industry.

In economic development then, we help the Small States of the Caribbean – any which way we can.

Social Challenges

So, too, in facing up to some of your Small State social challenges.

These, in fact, fly in the face of some extraordinary Caribbean achievements in investing in human development and social support systems. The progress made from illiteracy to Universal Primary Education, for instance in places like Barbados, was phenomenal. Education has been the foundation of Caribbean success. Witness this world class university. Witness the fact that the Caribbean punches well above its weight globally in music – and I couldn’t be in Jamaica without mentioning the enormous contribution of Bob Marley. And then there’s also literature and academic thinking. Even in unlikely sports: long live the Jamaica bob sleigh team!

You have profited, too, from being a racial melting pot: good influences have migrated here. But bad things have infiltrated here too. International crime and drugs for example.

And people have sought to leave. Political and social unrest in Guyana is thought to have pushed nearly a third of the population out of the country. Teachers and health workers are still leaving: less teachers now than before, but still too many health workers. Three years ago we commissioned a study which showed that more Caribbean teachers were being granted work permits in the United Kingdom than teachers from Canada, a country with a population of over 30 million. For that reason, your countries have adopted the Commonwealth Teachers’ and Health Workers’ Recruitment Protocols, which aims to balance the rights of teachers to migrate internationally with the need to protect the exploitation of the precious and scarce human resources of poorer countries. Small islands are very vulnerable to losing people: the loss of one radiographer can close down services for cancer patients.

So the Caribbean still faces big challenges in human development. And many of these revolve around young people: their schooling, their health, their whole outlook.

I recall a Bahamian Superintendent telling our Commonwealth Youth Ministers Meeting in Nassau last year that high unemployment and family breakdown is fuelling high levels of crime. He cited a survey in which fully one-fifth of male students had recently carried a weapon to school, and a similar proportion were members of gangs. This is all the more sobering when we reflect that it is out-of-school youth who are most likely to be involved in drug dealing.

Look further at the prevalence of HIV/AIDS, which is the leading cause of death among younger adults, claiming nearly 30,000 lives last year. About a-third-of-a-million people, many of them young, are living with HIV in the Caribbean region. These kinds of figures are second only to those recorded in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Look, too, at the way Caribbean boys are underperforming at school – and dropping out early – and then, possibly, going down the routes of crime. How do we interpret this? Is it ‘boys without fathers’? Is it models of masculinity and with it bad attitudes to education? Our own research has revealed as much – and in fact we see this all over the Commonwealth. I understand that you are even aware of the issue here at UWI, with more female than male students.

So what is the Commonwealth doing about it? Rather than pushing the panic button and demonising young people, it’s trying to gather hard facts and engage in dialogue to find solutions. The Commonwealth Youth Programme has assisted several Caribbean governments in formulating National Youth Policies with the participation of young people themselves. The challenge now is to turn policy into practice.

An example of the Commonwealth response is the new UNESCO/Commonwealth HIV/AIDS Professorial Chair, based at the UWI campus in Port-of-Spain, which carried out the research I just mentioned. Another example is the Commonwealth Ambassadors for Positive Living programme. A network of young people – all HIV Positive – are brought together, trained, and then supported as they work in their home communities to change attitudes about living with HIV, and helping others to avoid it. We have Ambassadors in Guyana and Barbados.

We also have to equip the people who work with young people. Dialogue with young people isn’t easy: it requires specialist skills. This very University is part of a growing network offering Commonwealth Certificate and Diploma courses in Youth Work. In recent years some 300 Caribbean youth workers have taken these courses, and 100 or so are currently studying. A milestone for the programme has been the acceptance of the Diploma as a qualification for employment in the public service of Barbados and Grenada, and we hope that all member countries in the region will soon do likewise. National Associations of Youth Workers, in which Diploma graduates play a leading role, are being formed in several Caribbean countries. Here in Jamaica, we’re working with the National Council on Technical and Vocational Education and Training, on competency standards for youth workers that can apply right across the region.

Democracy

So much, then, for your economic and social challenges, and our help in meeting them.

The annual $12 million-worth of Commonwealth support for Development in the Caribbean, with thousands of people trained, must never obscure the fact that there is only one environment in which economic growth can take root, and in which social challenges can be met fairly and squarely. And that – in Small States just as in large – is in a democracy. This is my third point.

Democracy is, shall we say, ‘much discussed’ – but I think it’s also fair to say that in the first decade of the 21^st Century, it certainly hasn’t diminished as a currency.

Its triumphs tend to be unsung, even in India, with 450 million voters at the last election. We do ask how ‘democracy-as-we-understand-it’ can ever apply in China, or in Afghanistan, or Iraq. And we can all point to weaknesses in democracy wherever we find it. But, equally, I would say that in fact there is no one ‘democracy-as-we-understand-it’. It takes many shapes and forms. It’s organic. It responds to what people want.

Democracy is always a work in progress, a journey and not an end, wherever it is and however long it has been established. Our member countries make the continuing journey of democracy, and the Commonwealth walks with them along that road. In extreme cases, where our most dearly-held democratic principles are flagrantly flouted, we suspend membership. We did so in Fiji last December after the overthrow of a democratically elected government. But however powerful a signal that sent, it is only part of the Commonwealth way. Our way is to work with our member countries to strengthen democracy. We enjoy very special status as a trusted partner.

What is democracy?

It’s the best way we know to give individuals freedom, control over their lives, and opportunities to do better. We know democracy not just by its forms – like free and fair elections; a parliament, a judiciary and an executive which are apart but work together; accountable armed forces and police; an independent and responsible media; a lively civil society. Even more so, we know democracy when there is a real culture of democracy … when all citizens – women, men, young and old, of every creed – have a say in how they are governed.

The second tier of that democracy is not ‘government’ but ‘governance’. That is the commodity that makes a vote a thing worth having … a thing which guarantees the institutions, the laws and the trained and honest officials actually to deliver government – in national and local administration. Government that is transparent, efficient, and fair.

Here again, the Commonwealth stands alongside the Caribbean.

It does so at the very public level, in supporting elections and defusing political tension.

I rate the democratic health of the Caribbean highly. Over the last few years, the Commonwealth has been assisting in strengthening democratic institutions in the Caribbean – monitoring elections in Trinidad, St Kitts and Antigua, for example; strengthening the electoral commission in Antigua; and running a regional seminar last year on the roles, rights and responsibilities of Government and Opposition.

In Guyana, we sent a Commonwealth Observer Group to follow last August’s elections. We reported that they were credible, and that they reflected the will of the people. But we stated the caveat that the electoral roll must be seriously improved, as must the way in which the election commission is constituted. Five years ago, President Jagdeo invited us to help in strengthening electoral institutions and best practice, and in promoting dialogue between political parties. That process has not been easy. You know only too well that there was serious unrest in the months before the election – a combination of political tension and increasing lawlessness. My special envoy Sir Paul Reeves, a former Governor General and Archbishop of New Zealand, carried out very valuable work in helping to steer a smooth electoral path. The result was a peaceful election for Guyana.

But the Commonwealth work goes on at the level of ‘governance’, too. Some of you may well be familiar with the Masters in Public Administration which the Commonwealth funds here at UWI. 400 people go through the course annually. Others of you may know that Jamaica played host to justices and registrars from around the Commonwealth just last week.

We are advising the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force Secretariat on its anti-money-laundering activities. Another programme trains policy officers and prosecutors in combating terrorism. Another advises Caribbean heads of civil service. This is unglamorous capacity-building work – but it’s as much a part of building and maintaining stable democracy as any meeting I may have with one of your Prime Ministers.

So democracy is about government and governance. But it’s also about a deep-set culture and values.

By their firm and clear positions taken in the past on issues such as ending racist apartheid in South Africa, our Caribbean members have always contributed significantly to making the Commonwealth what it is today: an organisation proudly based on shared fundamental values like equality and human rights.

But more can be done on the home front.

There are four Caribbean members, for instance, which have not yet ratified the primary international human rights Covenants, which have been in force now for over 40 years, building on the founding of the UN and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I have been encouraging them, and we have been assisting them. Last year we brought 30 or 40 regional legal experts together in St John’s to work on the technicalities. In less than three weeks time, we’re bringing Caribbean ombudsmen to London. The aim is to strengthen their offices, drawing on the experiences of the 17 Commonwealth countries that have national human rights commissions.

So it’s on the home front where Commonwealth values, which are of course Caribbean values, can really be given meaning in people’s lives.

I said before that this region is second only to sub-Saharan Africa in the rate at which HIV is spreading. Health apart, democratic culture shows itself here – because it is also very clear that more needs to be done in this region to tackle unjustifiable discrimination in society against people with HIV, to encourage open national debate, to beat this disease. There is no difference between racism and discrimination based on HIV status: these offend us all. People with HIV have equal rights.

So do women, in public and in private life. Women have done very well in education and public sector work in the Caribbean, but less well in politics. Only Grenada meets our Commonwealth target of 30% women in Parliament. And most, I think, would agree with me in saying that there are too many female-headed households in the Caribbean, which are often poor.

The Commonwealth actively supports equality between the sexes. We are helping to set up a Caribbean Institute for Women in Politics. In the OECS Secretariat we have legal drafters working on Family Law reform, to protect women’s rights. We have a gender expert within the CARICOM Secretariat, above all focusing on the gender dimension of national AIDS strategies.

So whether it’s equality for women, issues of domestic violence, or discrimination, our Commonwealth democratic values, forged on issues we’ve faced in the past, show us the way forward, in the Caribbean and throughout the Commonwealth.

Challenges in the Caribbean

Which brings me to my fourth and final point. Everything I have said is addressed to Caribbean states corporately and individually. I’d like to close by saying a word specifically about this region.

I’m reminded of the words of Prime Minister Patrick Manning, at CARICOM last July in St Kitts: ‘to follow the West Indies cricket team doth not a West Indian make’. How very true. That same day, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves spoke of the ‘unanswerable case for deeper union’, as you signed into being the long-awaited Caribbean Single Market. Your processes of integration now bring with them the nitpicking realities of things like passports and visas, as well as the bigger issues like regional security, the battle against organised crime, and the Caribbean Court of Justice.

Beyond a big hundred from the big batsmen to seal a last-ball win in the Cricket World Cup Final at the Bridgetown Oval on 28^th April, what does integration really mean?

On top of the integration that shows itself in things like cricket – and UWI – integration has to mean political and economic integration. Look at the EU and its ‘four freedoms’: integration means the free movement of people, services, goods and capital. Ask yourselves where you stand on the free movement of people: some Caribbean countries have had bad experiences of illegal immigration; others have known all the good potential of legal migration. Currently you allow freedom of movement for graduates only – surely, there have to be moves to go further than that.

And ask yourselves the obvious question as to whether – in a globalising world – you can win your battles alone, or standing together. I hope the answer is obvious. Whether it’s the Caribbean in the form of CARICOM – or the Caribbean in the form of the Commonwealth, actively sharing its experiences with other Small State islands like those 9 members dotted around the Pacific Ocean – there is strength in numbers, and unity of purpose.

I saw that at first hand when I visited Grenada in the wake of Hurricane Ivan. I’ll be there again in a few days to underline a continued Commonwealth commitment worth some $5 million. But what an achievement to ‘build back a better Grenada’! It was and is a task shared not just by the people of those islands but by the people of all these Caribbean countries. What resilience, what solidarity!

You’re ‘Small states, big spirits’, and I salute you. Thank you.

ENDS

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