GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC – Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is among the special guests attending the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) summit that opens in Guyana on February 25.
Apart from the Brazilian leader, the President of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Dr. Ilan Goldfajn, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Minister of State for International Cooperation, Reem al Hashimy, will attend the three-day summit that Guyana’s President Dr. Irfaan Ali will chair.
The regional leaders are expected to discuss several issues crucial to the 15-member regional integration grouping, including the ongoing socio-economic situation in Haiti, where security remains a high priority, highlighted by the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise.
Rival criminal gangs have been seeking to control areas of the capital, and a Multinational Security Support (MSS) Mission in Haiti, approved by the United Nations Security Council last October to assist the government in restoring law and order, is yet to be fully deployed in the French-speaking CARICOM country.
Kenya will lead the MSS, and several CARICOM countries have indicated a willingness to support the team coordinating with the Haitian National Police.
In addition to Haiti, the regional leaders will focus on territorial threats, including the Guyana-Venezuela border dispute, crime and violence, climate change and financing, and regional food and nutrition security.
Additionally, the agenda will feature discussions on COP 28 and the upcoming Fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States. The summit will also deliberate on global and hemispheric issues, including developments in the Middle East and emerging situations in Argentina, Ecuador, and Guatemala.
The summit will most likely discuss the region’s position to be adopted at the VIII Summit of Heads of States and Governments of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in St. Vincent and the Grenadines on March 1.
CELAC serves as an intergovernmental platform for dialogue and political consensus, comprising a membership of thirty-two nations across Latin America and the Caribbean. Functioning as a regional forum, CELAC aims to unify all Latin American and Caribbean countries, aspiring to represent a distinctive voice and establish structured mechanisms for policymaking in politics and cooperation to bolster regional integration initiatives.
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