GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Plan­ning, Eco­nom­ic Af­fairs and De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Kennedy Swarats­ingh has urged Caribbean na­tions and their Latin Amer­i­can part­ners to em­brace strate­gic south-to-south co­op­er­a­tion as a trans­for­ma­tive path­way for re­silience, com­pet­i­tive­ness and in­clu­sive growth. He made the call while ad­dress­ing a Caribbean De­vel­op­ment sem­i­nar host­ed by the Eco­nom­ic Com­mis­sion of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (ECLAC) held yes­ter­day at the Hilton, where the min­is­ter un­der­scored the ur­gency of mov­ing be­yond sym­bol­ic ges­tures to­ward pur­pose­ful, re­source-ori­ent­ed col­lab­o­ra­tion.

Swarats­ingh em­pha­sised that co­op­er­a­tion among de­vel­op­ing na­tions must be tai­lored to the unique vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties of Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States (SIDS).

He not­ed that per­sis­tent chal­lenges—such as lim­it­ed ac­cess to tech­nol­o­gy, re­search, and fi­nanc­ing—should not be seen mere­ly as ob­sta­cles but rather as op­por­tu­ni­ties to dri­ve com­pet­i­tive­ness and re­silience.

“South-to-south co­op­er­a­tion can di­rect­ly con­front the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties of SIDS by un­lock­ing ac­cess to tech­nol­o­gy, re­search and de­vel­op­ment, skills up­grad­ing, and in­sti­tu­tion­al strength­en­ing that can be tai­lored to our unique cir­cum­stances,” he ex­plained.

Build­ing on this point, the min­is­ter stressed that such co­op­er­a­tion must be strate­gic and in­ten­tion­al, de­scrib­ing it as a vi­tal medi­um for trans­for­ma­tion.

He said part­ner­ships among de­vel­op­ing na­tions en­able the shar­ing of proven so­lu­tions, repli­ca­tion of suc­cess­ful mod­els, and de­vel­op­ment of shared pub­lic goods—in­clud­ing dig­i­tal plat­forms, re­silient in­fra­struc­ture, and fi­nanc­ing mech­a­nisms—that SIDS could not es­tab­lish in­de­pen­dent­ly.

By pool­ing re­sources and ex­per­tise, he ar­gued, the re­gion could un­lock new op­por­tu­ni­ties for re­silience and sus­tain­able growth.

To il­lus­trate how this vi­sion could be op­er­a­tionalised, Swarats­ingh wel­comed the in­clu­sion of a tech­ni­cal, op­er­a­tional, po­lit­i­cal, and per­spec­tive ca­pac­i­ties frame­work in on­go­ing dis­cus­sions, not­ing that it pro­vides a prac­ti­cal roadmap for struc­tur­al change.

He pro­posed sev­er­al modal­i­ties to chan­nel co­op­er­a­tion more ef­fec­tive­ly: first, the ex­plo­ration of re­gion­al project pipelines for so­cial and en­vi­ron­men­tal ini­tia­tives; sec­ond, the cre­ation of joint in­vest­ment plat­forms with the Latin Amer­i­ca and De­vel­op­ment Bank to sup­port eco­nom­ic, so­cial, and en­vi­ron­men­tal pri­or­i­ties; and third, the ad­vance­ment of tri­an­gu­lar co­op­er­a­tion that lever­ages south to south tech­ni­cal ex­per­tise along­side de­vel­op­ment part­ner fi­nanc­ing.

"As we are all aware, fi­nanc­ing re­mains fun­da­men­tal," he em­pha­sised.

Swarats­ingh fur­ther high­light­ed the ur­gent need for Caribbean cit­i­zens to gain ac­cess to cli­mate fi­nanc­ing, con­ces­sion­al win­dows, and blend­ed in­stru­ments that re­flect the re­gion’s high vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty.

He cau­tioned that de­spite many Caribbean states be­ing clas­si­fied as high-in­come economies, fi­nan­cial mech­a­nisms must be tai­lored to the re­al­i­ties of SIDS, which face dis­pro­por­tion­ate risks from cli­mate change.

Turn­ing to the broad­er po­ten­tial of Latin Amer­i­ca-Caribbean re­la­tions, the min­is­ter stressed that co­op­er­a­tion must pri­ori­tise the par­tic­i­pa­tion of mi­cro, small, and medi­um en­ter­pris­es (MSMEs) in re­gion­al sup­ply net­works.

Such in­te­gra­tion, he ar­gued, is es­sen­tial to en­sur­ing trans­for­ma­tion that is both in­clu­sive and lo­calised.

"This type of in­te­gra­tion is how we stim­u­late pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, cre­ate de­cent jobs, and en­hance com­pet­i­tive­ness," Swarats­ingh said, point­ing to the im­por­tance of strength­en­ing hu­man cap­i­tal through up­skilling and knowl­edge ex­change, while al­so call­ing for joint re­search pro­grammes and aca­d­e­m­ic net­works across Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean to fos­ter in­no­va­tion and shared learn­ing.