GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC—The Caribbean Group (CARICOM) and the Kingdom of Spain have signed a brand new five-year settlement for technical cooperation in meals and diet safety, well being, local weather change, and catastrophe danger discount.
These focal areas had been authorized on the IV Assembly of the Joint Fee of the Spain-CARICOM Fund, which was lately held right here on the CARICOM Secretariat headquarters.
The assembly was supposed to proceed the dialogue between CARICOM and the Spanish Company for Worldwide Improvement Cooperation (AECID) to ascertain precedence areas of cooperation and outline the strategic targets for a brand new cooperation program inside the Scientific and Technical Cooperation Settlement framework between the 2 events.
CARICOM’s Assistant Secretary-Normal for Overseas and Group Relations, Elizabeth Solomon, signed the settlement on behalf of the Secretariat, whereas Antón Leis García, the Director of AECID, signed for Spain.
Solomon acknowledged that the areas had been “well-aligned” with the Group’s goals of accelerating meals safety, addressing local weather change, and strengthening regional well being programs.
By way of well being, she mentioned: “CARICOM’s strategic focus is centered on addressing rising well being challenges and fortifying well being programs within the Area, with particular emphasis on prevention and management of Non-Communicable Ailments (NCDs), enhancing maternal and little one well being outcomes, strengthening well being programs to make sure common entry to high quality healthcare companies, and addressing environmental well being threats.”
She additionally acknowledged that the Group is working to scale back the Area’s meals import invoice by 25% by 2025, enhance intra-regional commerce, strengthen the agri-food system, foster long-term wealth creation alternatives for potential traders, and guarantee meals and diet safety for all CARICOM Member States.
Concerning local weather change, the Assistant Secretary-Normal acknowledged that the assembly occurred when a number of CARICOM Member States had been working to get well from the devastation inflicted by Hurricane Beryl.
“The storms that impression the Area have gotten stronger and extra frequent…The dearth of entry to concessional growth financing and local weather funding impacts our potential to adapt to this disaster. Subsequently, we should act urgently alongside growth companions resembling Spain to make sure the Group can face the challenges forward,” Solomon acknowledged.
The AECID Director highlighted the significance and urgency of discussing the right way to work multilaterally as like-minded companions to deal with issues resembling growth finance, local weather motion, and help for Haiti.
“We’re very engaged in Haiti. We by no means closed our workplace. We stay engaged. We’ve got contributed three million {dollars} to the worldwide mission that’s being deployed there. We salute the management of CARICOM not just for attempting to convey safety and stability to the nation but additionally for forging a political resolution, and we’re very inspired by the developments on the bottom,” Leis mentioned.
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