Caricom chair issues condolence on passing of Roderick Rainford

Chair of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) Dr Ter­rance Drew has is­sued a mes­sage fol­low­ing the death of for­mer Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Rod­er­ick Rain­ford.

In a state­ment from the CARI­COM Sec­re­tari­at in Turkeyen, Greater George­town, Guyana, the Com­mu­ni­ty said it learnt of Rain­ford’s pass­ing. Rain­ford served as Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al from 1983 to 1992.

Rain­ford, a na­tion­al of Ja­maica, al­so served as Deputy Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al. He led the Sec­re­tari­at dur­ing a pe­ri­od that in­clud­ed high oil prices and Cold War ten­sions which af­fect­ed the re­gion. The state­ment said he ad­dressed the re­gion­al im­pact of the 1983 mil­i­tary in­va­sion of Grena­da and worked on re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion, in­clud­ing the 1989 Grand Anse De­c­la­ra­tion.

The de­c­la­ra­tion set the foun­da­tion for the Cari­com Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my through the es­tab­lish­ment of the Com­mon Ex­ter­nal Tar­iff.

The state­ment said Rain­ford sup­port­ed eco­nom­ic and func­tion­al in­te­gra­tion to ad­vance de­vel­op­ment and im­prove the wel­fare of na­tion­als. Dur­ing his tenure, work in­clud­ed steps to­ward a Re­gion­al Stock Ex­change, ne­go­ti­a­tion of a frame­work for a Caribbean In­vest­ment Fund, and the re­ac­ti­va­tion of the Caribbean Fes­ti­val of Arts.

The Com­mu­ni­ty al­so not­ed ac­tion on en­vi­ron­men­tal man­age­ment and pro­tec­tion dur­ing his tenure. This in­clud­ed de­vel­op­ment of a CARI­COM Uni­form Build­ing Code and sup­port for in­sti­tu­tions for re­gion­al ac­tion such as the Caribbean En­vi­ron­men­tal Health In­sti­tute and the Caribbean Dis­as­ter Emer­gency Re­sponse Agency, now the Caribbean Dis­as­ter Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency.

For his con­tri­bu­tions to re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion, Rain­ford was award­ed the Or­der of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty in 2024.

The state­ment said Rain­ford is re­mem­bered by those who worked with him in the Sec­re­tari­at and across the re­gion. It said the Com­mu­ni­ty recog­nised his ser­vice and con­tri­bu­tion.

Chair Dr Drew ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to Rain­ford’s wife Ne­sha, his fam­i­ly and oth­ers.