BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – At least 15,000 Caribbean Community (CARICOM) nationals have made use of the free movement of people within the 15-member regional integration movement during the period 2007 and 2018, a senior official of the Barbados-based Directorate of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) and Trade.
The CSME allows for the movement of goods, skills, labor, and services across the region.
Addressing a workshop on supporting the “CSME on Gathering and Harmonizing Free Movement Data,” the Director of the CSME Office, Titus Preville, said that in November 2021, a study was undertaken to estimate the level of usage of the free movement regimes, particularly the skills and right of establishment regimes from inception in 2007 to 2018 using as a basis, the number of indefinite stay stamps issued.
“There were many challenges with data availability as several countries simply did not submit the data sets to the CARICOM Secretariat annually as agreed. Failure to do so has made it more difficult to report to this workshop on how the free movement of skills regime has performed in the context of the CSME,” Preville said, noting, however, from the data that was submitted, the CSME Unit had been able to produce estimates of the utilization of the free movement regimes.
He said cumulatively, between 2007 and 2018, CSME Office estimated that about 15,000 CARICOM nationals moved to utilize either the skills or the right of establishment regimes.
“Our estimates show that twice as many persons moved in the first five years, between 2007 and 2012, then between the second five years, 2013 and 2018. We now need data to do a similar analysis for 2019 to 2023.
“We were also able to deduce that annually, between 2013 and 2018, approximately 680 CSME nationals from one member state moved to other member states in the Community.”
Preville said importantly, the countries that were net recipients of skilled nationals in that period were Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, St. Kitts-Nevis, and Antigua and Barbuda.
He said the net senders in order of magnitude were Guyana, Jamaica, Dominica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia, Grenada, and Suriname, adding that the overall flow tended to be even in Belize.
But the St. Lucian-born Preville said that the real issue is data availability, noting that regional leaders at their summit in Port of Spain last month decided that the entire free movement of CARICOM nationals must be a reality by March 31, 2024.
He said the decision by the leaders would further “compound the issue of being in a position to provide answers on our free movement regime for people driven by economic factors.
“What does this mean in terms of facilitating that mandate in terms of systems that should be operational to ensure that the Community can measure whether the CSME, which is the regional economic integration arrangement, is delivering on the intended objectives.”
He said the workshop should give creative thought to how to accommodate the mandate given by the regional leaders “with the reality that there must be systems to provide the Heads and the Community with an accurate assessment of how the policy prescription is or is not performing.
“It is only by so doing we will be able to make policy adjustments to achieve our stated objectives of building a resilient and competitive regional economic space,” Preville added.
In his address to the workshop, Brendan Tarnay, the program support officer for the Caribbean of the Western Hemisphere Programme of the International Organization on Migration (IOM), said since 2019, the UN organization has sought to learn more about the unique environment of the regional integration movement in the Caribbean.
He said this is why in 2019, IOM endeavored to learn more, executed research on free movement in the region and developed the report Free Movement in the Caribbean.
“This was essential not only to gather and synthesize data and provide conclusions and recommendations but also for IOM to understand better the region and its unique position, experience, history, and needs – discreetly apart from the often lumped Latin America and the Caribbean.”
He said that the IOM strives to ensure that the data it seeks is disaggregated, state-driven and provides a point of departure for discussions with states and the regional integration regimes in the region.
“IOM encourages using migration data, including free movement data, to promote evidence-based decision-making and subsequent interventions. Harmonized data is essential as a form of reliable information and statistics for policymakers throughout the migration continuum.
“These data have a range of uses by all levels of government and other institutions, and is focused on challenges and effective approaches to national, regional and international migration management.”
Tarnay said that the IOM has been supporting different regional, subregional, national, and local partners on processes related to data gathering, harmonization, and collection and that beyond the free movement study, IOM has supported research in various thematic areas in the Caribbean, such as Diaspora Groups of the Eastern Caribbean, Labour mobility mechanisms in the Caribbean, and Recommendations for Facilitating the Movement of Persons with Diverse SOGIESC and for Facilitating the Cross-Border Migration of Indigenous Peoples.
He said as CARICOM countries move towards deepening their integration process and separately. Still very relevant, look to build resilience to external shocks, the free movement of nationals will be central to positioning their economies and contributing to sustainable development.
“It is therefore essential that member states have in place the data collection systems to provide accurate and valuable information to national and regional decision-makers on the nature of the movement of Community nationals, including its skilled labor force. “
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