On Tuesday, African and Caribbean leaders met virtually for the first Africa-CARICOM (Caribbean Community) Summit. Here are some of the major takeaways from the meeting that was hosted by Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Kenya
Kenyatta said the two sides must join hands in confronting challenges such as COVID-19, climate change, and public debt by deepening their “existing historical and cultural ties” as well as their “common identity.” Drawing on their shared experiences with slavery and colonialism, Kenyatta called for increased economic, social, and cultural cooperation in five areas: the blue economy, climate change, health and COVID-19, debt sustainability, and technology.
On the blue economy, Kenyatta said: “The African continent has 38 coastal and island states and a coastline of over 47,000 kilometres. And for all member states of the CARICOM, they enjoy access to approximately 1 million square miles of the Caribbean Sea.” He reasoned, “This presents enormous opportunities to strengthen and foster innovative partnerships across the two regions to sustainably harness the immense potential of the blue economy.”
With regards to climate change, he talked about how “extreme swings in temperature and rainfall patterns” in Africa and have create fertile breeding grounds for the “transmission of vector-borne diseases such as dengue fever, malaria, and yellow fever.” Similarly, the Caribbean, too, has faced a “rise in sea levels and increased ocean acidification” as a result of “climate extremes,” he said.
Kenyatta then said that the ongoing pandemic has served as a “wake up call” to develop vaccine manufacturing and medical supplies for future pandemics. He noted, however, that the pandemic had also expanded the debt burdens of several countries, thereby inhibiting their ability to not only deal with this health crisis but to prepare for future ones as well.
CARICOM
CARICOM Secretary-General Carla Barnett noted the importance of the Community’s historical interactions with the African Union Commission, the Southern African Development Community, and the Economic Community of West African States. She then said that the two regions have been driving forces in the establishment of the Non-Aligned Movement, which has led to the formation of the Group of 77, a group of developing nations in the UN, and the Organisation of African, Caribbean, and Pacific States (OCAPS).
Barnett lamented, however, that these ‘links’ have not been leveraged to “create lasting mechanisms,” noting that the ongoing pandemic should serve as a wake-up all for the need to bolster such partnerships. However, she expressed her gratitude to the African Union (AU) for distributing COVID-19 vaccines through its African Medical Supplies Platform to CARICOM states.
She said that trade between the two regions stood at $29 million in 2020, which Barnett noted is $10 million lower than in 2018.
Trinidad and Tobago
Prime Minister (PM) Keith Rowley hailed the partnership between the two regions in OCAPS. He said that such collaboration is of vital importance in securing “development finance, resource utilisation, and debt sustainability” also in “maximising the green and blue economies.”
Rowley also thanked the AU for distributing COVID-19 vaccines through its African Medical Supplies Platform, saying that Trinidad and Tobago had received its first match on 19 August.
He then said celebrated his own country’s ties with the continent, saying that it treasures its observer status in the African Union and sees great value in its high commissions in Nigeria and South Africa and in its honorary consuls in Ghana and Kenya. Furthermore, he said that the region as a whole would also be stepping up its diplomatic presence in Africa, with CARICOM set to open up an office in Kenya.
The PM also talked about the avenues for cooperation through the shared goals of the AU’s Vision 2063 and Trinidad and Tobago’s Vision 2030.
Antigua and Barbuda
PM Gaston Browne, who is also the chairman of CARICOM’s Conference of Heads of Government, took aim at Europe for being the cause for ‘underdevelopment’ in Africa and the Caribbean. He said, “Today, through their control of the global financial, economic and trading system, the major European nations and their North American allies, continue to hold Africa, the Caribbean and other developing countries in a trap of underdevelopment.”
Browne added, “Let us be clear: There was never trade between Africa and the Caribbean. There was trade between Europeans using African people as a commodity. They traded. We were traded.”
He argued that this inequality still persists today and is illustrated by the current pandemic, wherein “a few rich countries” control the “production and distribution of vital vaccines to suppress the COVID-19 pandemic.” To drive home his point, he said that almost 70% of the European Union and 60% of North America is fully vaccinated, compared to just 3% of Africans.
To this end, he called on his African partners to fight with CARICOM members to “change” the “ugliness and prevalence” of this ‘inequity’ in the international system by leveraging their “global bargaining power.” He said that together they have 69 nations and a population of around 1.4 billion people, with “great natural and wealth-creating resources including oil, gas, agriculture, minerals, forestry, tourism, fisheries and much more.”
Browned declared, “We must establish structures of cooperation to promote our mutual socio-economic interests; increasing investment and trade, and people to people exchanges between Africa and the Caribbean.” The leader added, “We should resist being pushed to the margins of international decision-making and collaborate on decisions to restructure the global financial architecture, on global taxation, derisking, climate change and reparations, among others.”
Keeping this in mind, he called for the creation of a Forum of African and Caribbean Territories and States to fight back against the “legacy of racism, colonialism, exploitation, and global inequities.”
Barbados
PM Mia Mottley, meanwhile, called for reduced travel restrictions and greater ease of movement between the two regions, proposing that there be “at least one weekly direct flight from Africa to the Caribbean.” She further called for all visa requirements to be “abolished.”
Jamaica
PM Andrew Holness said, “For Jamaica, there is potential in the agro-industry and logistics sector and Jamaican companies have already invested in Africa. Opportunities also exist for scientific research and collaboration, investment in health care, technological innovation and digitisation, as well as in the creative economy.”
He added, “In relation to development financing, debt sustainability and climate change, our cooperation within the OACPS, Commonwealth, UN and WTO remains a strong foundation for deepening integration between us.”
South Africa
President Cyril Ramaphosa, like Kenyatta, called for greater trade and investment, collaboration in research and developing, and sharing of expertise. He noted that this is especially necessary in light of the “devastating human, social, political, and economic” impact of the COVID-19 pandemic but noted that ‘underdevelopment’ has been a chronic problem over several decades and can be traced back to the colonial era.
Ramaphosa served as the Chairperson of the AU from 2020 until this past August and was thus one of the catalysts behind the AU’s COVID-19 Response Fund and the African Medical Supplies Platform.
The South African leader also urged his Caribbean counterparts to back his call for a temporary waiver of the TRIPS agreement at the World Trade Organization to allow for more equitable access to vaccines and critical medical equipment. Through this, they will be able to “lobby for partnerships on licensing and technology transfer with those countries that have the capacity to produce their own vaccines.”