CARICOM, UNESCO SIGN AGREEMENT

Secretary General of the Caribbean Community Mr Edwin Carrington and Director General of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) His Excellency Koichiro Matsuura today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for co-operation on five issues.

At a ceremony held at CARICOM Secretariat Headquarters, Georgetown, Guyana, the two organisations agreed that UNESCO would provide further assistance to CARICOM in the fields of Education, Culture, Human and Social Sciences, Natural Science and Communication and Information.

Mr Carrington, in a brief statement, noted that the areas of co-operation in the MOU all touched the very heart and soul of the Community as they reached directly to the people. He cited the fact that the cultural aspect of the memorandum was geared towards improving the capability of the Region’s artists and artistes to benefit economically from their innovation and creativity. In welcoming this development, Mr Carrington said that progress in that had been painstakingly slow in the region, which allowed others to reap the benefits of “our undoubtedly gifted peoples.”

“Any help that the Community can garner to ensure that the fruits of this creative labour can accrue to the artists and artistes is truly welcome,” he added. The Secretary-General noted the significance of the Director-General’s visit coinciding with the 30th Anniversary celebrations of the Community and pointed out that it was also at a time when the region was preparing to stage its premier cultural event, CARIFESTA VIII, in Suriname from August 24-30. UNESCO, he said had assisted with the inauguration of this event in Guyana in 1972.

The signing, had also occurred when the Caribbean Examinations Council was celebrating its 30th anniversary, Mr Carrington said and revealed that that Education segment of the document paid special attention to the development of distance education at the tertiary level. This element is being put in place at a time when the Community is striving to attain the goal of 15 percent enrollment of the post-secondary age cohort in tertiary-level education programmes by 2005.

Director-General Matsuura alluded to the longstanding co-operation between the two organizations, which went back to the 1980 UNESCO/CARICOM Agreement. The latest MOU, he said, supplemented and reinforced the basic agreement. It also revitalised co-operation at a time when both parties shared similar goals and objectives at the start of the 21st century.

He said UNESCO was interested in developing new modalities of co-operation at the level of the region and with individual states. Mr Matsuura also expressed satisfaction at the Education element being included in the MOU as basic education for all was one of the six goals for UNESCO to achieve by 2015.