The 33 Mem­ber States of the Com­mu­ni­ty of Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CELAC) group have pledged and com­mit­ted to work­ing to­geth­er to bring the re­gion through the cur­rent COVID-19 cri­sis, among oth­er crises im­pact­ing mem­bers coun­tries.

Mem­ber States met over the week­end in Mex­i­co City at the 6th Sum­mit of the Com­mu­ni­ty of Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean (CELAC) Heads of State and Gov­ern­ment.  The 6th CELAC Sum­mit was con­vened in Mex­i­co as that coun­try cur­rent­ly holds the Pro Tem­pore Pres­i­den­cy of CELAC.  Trinidad and To­ba­go was rep­re­sent­ed by Sen­a­tor Dr. Amery Browne, Min­is­ter of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs.

In the Po­lit­i­cal De­c­la­ra­tion of Mex­i­co City is­sued at the con­clu­sion of the Sum­mit, CELAC mem­ber states com­mit­ted to, among oth­er things: con­tin­ue work­ing to ad­dress the health, so­cial, eco­nom­ic and en­vi­ron­men­tal crises caused by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

They al­so ex­pressed sol­i­dar­i­ty on a num­ber of glob­al is­sues in­clud­ing fair and eq­ui­table ac­cess to COVID-19 vac­cines; point­ed to the need for af­ford­able fi­nanc­ing to fa­cil­i­tate eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery, as well as the need for uni­ver­sal mul­ti­di­men­sion­al in­dex to mea­sure vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to de­ter­mine ac­cess to con­ces­sion­al fi­nanc­ing.  CELAC mem­bers al­so called for strength­en­ing the ca­pac­i­ty for vac­cine pro­duc­tion in the CELAC re­gion.

On cli­mate change is­sues, they agreed to work to­wards com­bat­ting cli­mate change, and strength­en­ing the co­or­di­na­tion on dis­as­ter risk re­duc­tion and man­age­ment.

CELAC mem­bers al­so called for the re­jec­tion of all acts of ter­ror­ism, and un­der­scored the im­por­tance of ICTs to fos­ter de­vel­op­ment, among oth­er things.

The CELAC Heads of State and Gov­ern­ment al­so re­ceived mes­sages from ex­tra-re­gion­al part­ners of the Eu­ro­pean Coun­cil, ECLAC, the Unit­ed Na­tions Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al and the Pres­i­dent of the Peo­ple’s Re­pub­lic of Chi­na.

Sev­er­al coun­tries signed the Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean Space Agency Con­sti­tu­tive (ALCE) Agree­ment that will co­or­di­nate space-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties of mem­ber coun­tries and pro­mote im­prove­ment in satel­lite com­mu­ni­ca­tions sys­tems, which can as­sist with map­ping the re­gion’s strengths, vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties and threats. The ALCE Agree­ment is open for sig­na­ture by the re­main­ing CELAC mem­ber states when each state is ready to do so.

Min­is­ter Browne and oth­er Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) Heads of Del­e­ga­tion al­so met with His Ex­cel­len­cy Rodol­fo Solano Quiros, Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs and Wor­ship of Cos­ta Ri­ca, in the mar­gins of the 6th CELAC Sum­mit. The dis­cus­sions fo­cussed on in­creas­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion in the mul­ti­lat­er­al fo­ra, in­clud­ing ECLAC, for which Cos­ta Ri­ca cur­rent­ly holds the Chair­man­ship.