CARICOM marks 52 years of regional integration

The Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM) marks its 52nd an­niver­sary to­day, CARI­COM Day 2025, with a re­flec­tion on the re­gion’s shared his­to­ry, cul­ture, and as­pi­ra­tions for the fu­ture.

In an of­fi­cial state­ment, the Com­mu­ni­ty recog­nised its sta­tus as the old­est sur­viv­ing in­te­gra­tion move­ment glob­al­ly. The achieve­ments of past lead­ers were high­light­ed as the foun­da­tion up­on which cur­rent ef­forts to­ward progress and peace con­tin­ue to build.

“The past year pre­sent­ed sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges for the re­gion,” the state­ment said, point­ing to Hur­ri­cane Beryl and oth­er cli­mate-re­lat­ed events that strained re­cov­ery and de­vel­op­ment ef­forts. Ad­di­tion­al com­pli­ca­tions were not­ed from shift­ing glob­al trade and tar­iff regimes and mil­i­tary con­flicts in sev­er­al in­ter­na­tion­al are­nas.

“The on­go­ing sit­u­a­tion in Haiti re­mains a con­sis­tent con­cern for both na­tion­al and re­gion­al pol­i­cy­mak­ers,” it added.

CARI­COM re­it­er­at­ed that “col­lec­tive ac­tion, guid­ed by shared val­ues such as democ­ra­cy, the rule of law, and hu­man rights, con­tin­ues to sup­port the re­gion dur­ing times of change.” Prac­ti­cal ex­am­ples cit­ed in­clud­ed health col­lab­o­ra­tions dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, ini­tia­tives to boost food and nu­tri­tion se­cu­ri­ty through agri­cul­tur­al in­vest­ment, and uni­fied ad­vo­ca­cy on cli­mate change and cli­mate fi­nance.

As part of the an­niver­sary ob­ser­vances, CARI­COM Heads of Gov­ern­ment are sched­uled to meet in Mon­tego Bay, Ja­maica, for the 49th Reg­u­lar Meet­ing of the Con­fer­ence.

Key agen­da items in­clude cit­i­zen se­cu­ri­ty, en­hance­ment of the CARI­COM Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my (CSME), and ex­ter­nal trade ne­go­ti­a­tions. These top­ics are ex­pect­ed to shape fu­ture poli­cies in­tend­ed to im­prove the qual­i­ty of life for peo­ple across the re­gion.

Ac­knowl­edg­ment was ex­tend­ed to CARI­COM cit­i­zens and di­as­po­ra mem­bers for their on­go­ing role in ad­vanc­ing de­vel­op­ment and in­te­gra­tion. The con­tri­bu­tions of young peo­ple were es­pe­cial­ly not­ed for their com­mit­ment to re­gion­al­ism and their ef­forts to fos­ter an in­clu­sive and co­he­sive Com­mu­ni­ty.

The state­ment con­clud­ed by af­firm­ing CARI­COM’s his­tor­i­cal record of achieve­ment as ev­i­dence of the re­gion’s ca­pac­i­ty for long-term growth, sta­bil­i­ty, and re­silience. Lead­ers urged that every op­por­tu­ni­ty be seized to re­alise these goals for all cit­i­zens, re­gard­less of race, re­li­gion, or lan­guage.