Africa-Press – Tanzania. VICE-PRESIDENT Dr Philip Mpango underscored the need for a strengthened African-Caribbean cooperation to accelerate development which will benefit all concerned nations.
Dr Mpango revealed that the drive to promote stronger ties between Africa -CARICOM Union is underpinned by the fact that the countries share a common descent and desire to achieve a faster, sustainable development and prosperity for their citizens.
The VP was speaking during the first AfricaCARICOM Summit, which was held virtually and chaired by Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta under the theme ‘Unity Across Continents and Oceans: Opportunities for Deepening Integration’. It comes after plans by Kenya to host a CARICOM and Africa Summit in 2020 were put on hold because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Summit follows the Declaration by the African Union of the Diaspora as the sixth region of Africa.
“Tanzania fully supports the proposal to make the Africa CARICOM Summit a standing force, targeting to harness the shared blue economy and scale up inter and intra-Africa-CARICOM trade and access, Preferential Trade and how the cooperation can together benefit from emerging technologies amongst areas,” said Dr Mpango, who represented President Samia Suluhu Hassan at the virtual summit.
He was of the view that the forum should be an instrument to sharpen and bolster the countries voice in global negotiation of monitoring financial and investment agenda which have a huge impact in economic growth and survival.
As the meeting is taking place at a time when the world is facing a devastating health emergency and economic crisis, the VP highlighted that the response to the crisis has seen countries in the south being severely affected.
According to him, this is because the countries relatively small capacity to respond to the outbreak, whereas there has been a witnessed vaccine nationalism in the developed world. “It is prudent and upon us Africa and the Caribbean to unite our response and to amplify efforts for vaccines to be made available to those most in need in developing countries,” noted Dr Mpango.
In his inaugural speech, President Kenyatta outlined several areas in which Africa and CARICOM could work together, and listed them as the blue economy, climate change, health, debt sustainability and technology.
He noted that Africa and the Caribbean had enormous resources in the blue economy, noting that it presents enormous opportunities to strengthen and foster innovative partnerships across the two regions to sustainably exploit and harness the potential of the blue economy.
“Sustainable exploitation of these resources will no doubt boost economic prosperity; expand creation of decent jobs, and strengthen food security in our two regions,” he submitted.
President Kenyatta observed that the Covid-19 pandemic had stretched health systems and challenged traditional approaches to public health, citing that the governments in these two regions were struggling to obtain needed Covid-19 vaccines.
“In fact, in the early days of the pandemic, we experienced serious challenges with supply of personal protective equipment, medical oxygen, as well as ventilators.
This is a wakeup call for all of us in the developing world. “We must do what we have to do to build our own manufacturing capacity for vaccines and critical medical supplies.
In addition, we must strengthen research, surveillance and monitoring capacity in order to mount effective responses to Covid-19 and other possible pandemics in the future,” he suggested.
The participants of the summit include Heads of State and Government of the Caribbean Community and the African Union, Chairs of CARICOM and the African Union Commission, and the Africa Regional Economic Communities (RECs), the Secretaries-General of CARICOM and the Organization of the African Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS), and the President of Caribbean Development Bank (CDB).
Others are the Chair of CARICOM, Gaston Browne, Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda.
This historical Summit was proposed during a meeting between Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and the CARICOM Heads of Government held in August 2019 in Bridgetown, Barbados.
It was in recognition of the common heritage between the two regions and the need for cooperation to leverage opportunities for development and shared prosperity.
