African Union Commission seeks best practices from CARICOM Secretariat

Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Ambassador Irwin LaRocque has described as “important and historic” a working visit to the Secretariat’s headquarters by a team from the African Union Commission (AUC).

The three-day visit, which began on Wednesday, forms part of a comparative study of various multilateral and inter-governmental organisations being conducted by the AU delegation.

CARICOM is among integration movements including the European Union (EU), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and the East African Community, where the team is examining systems and procedures of operations to extract best practices to ultimately improve the working methods of the AUC.

The Secretary-General told the delegation that the Community valued its relationship with the AU and stressed the importance of integration movements among developing countries working closer together.

The visiting delegation was led by Ambassador Baso Sanqu, Chief Adviser to the Chairperson of the AUC. The other members were Mr. Agbor Ambang, Mr. Adewale E. Iyanda, and Dr. Jide Balogun.

Ambassador Sangu stated that CARICOM had a “special place” in the AU and that he considered the visit as a way of “resuscitating our ties.”

The working sessions included discussions on the CARICOM Secretariat’s institutional architecture, key conference processes, agenda setting and decision-making processes, mechanisms for implementation, monitoring, reporting and evaluation. The visit ended on Friday.