Forward Together and Encounter: 3 Years After

It was with much anticipation of a buzz of future activity that a Civil Society delegation left the shores of Barbados simultaneously as delegations from 14 other CARICOM States headed to Guyana to participate in the Forward Together Conference and Encounter with the CARICOM Heads of Government.

By the end of the Conference it was agreed that the Heads and Civil Society should meet more often and it was agreed that another such conference should happen three years later.

That time is now upon us and as we get closer to July, Civil Society should really be in a position to state that we are ready to engage CARICOM. Of course, remembering the tongue lashing that was heaped upon Civil Society at the time one wonders what is in store this time around.

A few points should be made before proceeding. First is the fact that the mandate for the CARICOM Civil Society process was placed squarely in the lap of the CARICOM Secretariat. The Secretariat found itself in the position of having to raise funds in order to hold meetings with the delegates and I believe that in all we only had three meetings including one this year.

Over this three year period not one of the Governments undertook to fund their representatives to attend meetings and we are talking about one person from each state.

Furthermore, all of this work was tacked on to an employee of the Secretariat whose substantive duties did not include this function and hence was unable to pay sufficient attention to the process.

Having said that, one could only conclude that miracles have happened because with all the constraints we still managed to report to the COHSOD within eight months after the Forward Together Conference and we are well on the way to the establishment of the CARICOM Civil Society Council and the CARICOM NGO Forum .

By the time the Heads of Government meet in July 2005 we should be reporting that we are ready to go ahead with the formalization of the Forum and the Council in principle the only problem left is how will it be funded.

Considering that the one man delegations were not funded by the respective Governments it is not expected that they will do it for the Forum or the Council. I cannot imagine that we will be struggling simply to attend meetings or miss them if you can't find the resources and we have been doing a lot of the later for a long time.

It would seem that for the long term survival of any regional structure, Civil Society will have to find a way of making an investment which will earn an income to allow it to pursue its agenda; maybe in similar fashion to the Caribbean Court of Justice.

The most crucial reports to the Heads come July, will be reports from national Civil Society delegations about what they have done over the past three years. All I will say at this time is that we have one more step to take and that is to formalize the mechanism that will take us forward.

BANGO in collaboration with Government, other agencies and NGOs is planning a two-day NGO Summit designed to establish a mechanism, with clearly defined rules, for choosing representatives to sit on the National Civil Society Council, the CARICOM NGO Forum and the CARICOM Civil Society Council.

The other CARICOM States that are ready: St. Kitts , Bahamas and Trinidad & Tobago to a large extent are the only ones. Let me say that BANGO provided inspiration and the technical consultation that guided the creation of "Civil Society Bahamas " as it is known today. If we can do it for them, then we can do it for ourselves.

Roosevelt O. King
Secretary General
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