The Caribbean has nev­er lacked in­spir­ing rhetoric about re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion. What has too of­ten been miss­ing is the po­lit­i­cal will to turn those as­pi­ra­tions in­to mean­ing­ful ac­tion. As lead­ers meet in St Lu­cia this week for their 51st sum­mit, they must recog­nise that the great­est threat to the Com­mu­ni­ty may not come from out­side its bor­ders, but from di­vi­sions with­in.

The con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing the reap­point­ment of Cari­com Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Dr Car­la Bar­nett has cast an un­wel­come shad­ow over the sum­mit. Trinidad and To­ba­go’s con­cerns about trans­paren­cy and process de­serve a fair hear­ing. Yet, the Com­mu­ni­ty can­not al­low a gov­er­nance dis­pute to dis­tract from the ur­gent chal­lenges fac­ing our re­gion. Caribbean cit­i­zens are less con­cerned about in­sti­tu­tion­al wran­gling than whether their lead­ers can de­liv­er safer com­mu­ni­ties, stronger economies and greater op­por­tu­ni­ties.

That re­al­i­ty was re­flect­ed in host prime min­is­ter Philip J Pierre’s ap­peal for Cari­com to move “from con­fer­ence rooms to com­mu­ni­ties” and “from rhetoric to re­al­i­ty.” As in­com­ing chair­man of the re­gion­al group­ing, his words cap­ture the chal­lenge con­fronting the 15-na­tion bloc: In­te­gra­tion can­not be mea­sured sole­ly by the com­mu­niqués is­sued af­ter sum­mits. It must be judged by tan­gi­ble im­prove­ments in the lives of or­di­nary peo­ple.

Those im­prove­ments are ur­gent­ly need­ed. Vi­o­lent crime con­tin­ues to af­fect sev­er­al mem­ber states. Cli­mate change re­mains an ex­is­ten­tial threat to vul­ner­a­ble is­land na­tions. Food se­cu­ri­ty, en­er­gy re­silience, dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion and youth em­ploy­ment all de­mand co­or­di­nat­ed re­gion­al re­spons­es. These chal­lenges do not re­spect bor­ders and can­not be solved by in­di­vid­ual states act­ing alone.

Cari­com’s great­est strength has al­ways been its abil­i­ty to am­pli­fy the voic­es of small na­tions through col­lec­tive ac­tion. That prin­ci­ple was ev­i­dent re­cent­ly when Trinidad and To­ba­go se­cured elec­tion to a non-per­ma­nent seat on the Unit­ed Na­tions Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil with over­whelm­ing re­gion­al sup­port. It was a re­minder that uni­ty al­lows the Caribbean to ex­ert in­flu­ence far be­yond its size.

Yet, uni­ty can­not be tak­en for grant­ed. Out­go­ing Cari­com chair­man Dr Ter­rance Drew’s call for heads of gov­ern­ment to at­tend meet­ings where ma­jor de­ci­sions are tak­en re­flects a ba­sic truth: trust is built through di­a­logue, par­tic­i­pa­tion and mu­tu­al re­spect. Re­gion­al in­sti­tu­tions can­not func­tion ef­fec­tive­ly if dis­agree­ments are al­lowed to play out pub­licly while op­por­tu­ni­ties for frank dis­cus­sion are missed.

The in­ter­na­tion­al en­vi­ron­ment is be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly un­cer­tain, mak­ing re­gion­al co­he­sion even more im­por­tant. A di­vid­ed Cari­com weak­ens its ne­go­ti­at­ing pow­er and leaves mem­ber states more vul­ner­a­ble to ex­ter­nal pres­sures. In an era of shift­ing geopo­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic al­liances, the Caribbean needs a stronger col­lec­tive voice, not a weak­er one.

At the same time, Cari­com must ad­dress le­git­i­mate con­cerns about its ef­fec­tive­ness. Cit­i­zens de­serve greater trans­paren­cy, stronger ac­count­abil­i­ty and mea­sur­able progress on de­ci­sions made at suc­ces­sive sum­mits. Too of­ten, am­bi­tious com­mit­ments fail to trans­late in­to im­ple­men­ta­tion, fu­elling pub­lic scep­ti­cism about the val­ue of re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion.

The founders of Cari­com un­der­stood that uni­ty was nev­er an end in it­self. It was a prac­ti­cal strat­e­gy for sur­vival and pros­per­i­ty in a world dom­i­nat­ed by larg­er pow­ers. That les­son re­mains as rel­e­vant to­day as it was more than 50 years ago.

Dif­fer­ences among mem­ber states are in­evitable. Al­low­ing them to un­der­mine the re­gion­al project is not. The Caribbean’s fu­ture de­pends on lead­ers re­mem­ber­ing that while na­tion­al in­ter­ests mat­ter, the re­gion’s col­lec­tive strength re­mains its great­est as­set.