(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the United Nations Population Fund, UNFPA have launched a South-South Cooperation Initiative which will see closer collaboration between both organisations in the promotion of sustainable human development. . Delivering remarks at the launch of the CARICOM-UNFPA Cooperation Agreement, on Tuesday 28 February at the CARICOM Secretariat in Georgetown, Guyana, Deputy Secretary of CARICOM, Ambassador Lolita Applewhaite said the initiative marked a significant advance in the relations between CARICOM and the UNFPA.

Ambassador Applewhaite highlighted several areas which she noted were of specific interest to the Community in the context of increased cooperation between CARICOM and the UNFPA. These included adolescent sexual and reproductive health, health and family life education initiative for gender, parenting, community outreach and out of school youth, life skills, HIV/AIDS education and career planning.

The Deputy Secretary-General underscored the increased importance which the Community had assigned to networking with its partners to ensure a better quality of life for all in the Region, by facilitating access and movement across the Region under the Community’s flagship programme, the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME).

UNFPA Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, Ms Marisela Padron Quero said the launch of the cooperation initiative provided a framework for shared skills in the areas of sexual and reproductive health, HIV/AIDS prevention, population and development strategies, data for development planning and the promotion of gender equality.

Ms Padron Quero pointed out that her agency viewed the agreement as a continuum of earlier successes yielded by CARICOM as a result of partnerships with the UNFPA.

The CARICOM-UNFPA South-South Initiative is aimed at strengthening and accelerating programmes crafted as a result of an agreement signed in December 2004 by CARICOM Secretary-General, Mr. Edwin Carrington and the Executive Director of the UNFPA, Ms Thoraya Ahmed Obaid.