Caricom urges response plan to Middle East conflict

As­sis­tant Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al (Ag.) of Cari­com, Dr Wen­dell Samuel, has called for ac­tion to ad­dress the im­pact of the Mid­dle East con­flict on the Caribbean.

Dr Samuel made the state­ment dur­ing a vir­tu­al di­a­logue on April 10 host­ed by the Food and Agri­cul­ture Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Unit­ed Na­tions. The dis­cus­sion ex­am­ined ef­fects on Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, with fo­cus on food se­cu­ri­ty, agri­cul­ture and macro­eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty.

Dr Samuel said CARI­COM has de­vel­oped a draft re­sponse ma­trix to ad­dress fall­out from the con­flict. He said the ma­trix will be pre­sent­ed to re­gion­al Min­is­ters of Agri­cul­ture for con­sid­er­a­tion, adop­tion and im­ple­men­ta­tion.

He said the ma­trix links ex­ter­nal shocks to pol­i­cy re­spons­es and out­lines mea­sures for im­ple­men­ta­tion. It in­cludes short-term mea­sures and long-term ac­tions and pro­motes re­gion­al co­or­di­na­tion.

Dr Samuel said pri­or­i­ty ar­eas in­clude co­or­di­na­tion in pro­cure­ment, lo­gis­tics and re­serves, in­vest­ment in en­er­gy and food sys­tems, pol­i­cy align­ment and strength­en­ing of re­gion­al in­sti­tu­tions.

He said re­gion­al economies are af­fect­ed by glob­al shocks through en­er­gy mar­kets, food sys­tems and sup­ply chains.

Dr Samuel said the re­gion de­pends on im­ports of food, fu­el, fer­tilis­ers and ship­ping ser­vices. He said this ex­po­sure can trans­fer ex­ter­nal de­vel­op­ments in­to do­mes­tic eco­nom­ic con­di­tions.

He said in­fla­tion, food ac­cess and fis­cal sta­bil­i­ty are cur­rent pol­i­cy con­cerns. He said there is need to as­sess how im­pacts are trans­mit­ted and to ad­vance co­or­di­nat­ed re­spons­es.

Dr Samuel said de­ci­sions tak­en now will af­fect the re­gion’s re­sponse to the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion and fu­ture glob­al de­vel­op­ments.