CARIBBEAN COMMISSION ON HEALTH AND DEVELOPMENT (CCHD) LAUNCHED

The Caribbean Commission on Health and Development (CCHD) was launched on Monday, 22 September 2003, in Washington DC. United States.

The goal of the CCHD is to give substance to the 2001 Nassau Declaration The Health of the Region is the Wealth of the Region. In this regard, the Commission will be responsible for providing the guidelines for action to increase investment in health in the Caribbean Community.

In his remarks at the ceremony to launch the CCHD, Chairman of the Commission, Sir George Alleyne, former Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) Director said that the Commission “must make the region’s leaders converts to the cause of health”. Speaking also was Dr. Mirta Roses Periago, PAHO Director, who said, “this first step was an example to be followed by other regions of the Americas”. Dr. Douglas Slater, Minister of Health and the Environment, St. Vincent and the Grenadines who was the Chair of COHSOD VI, which proposed the establishment of the Commission, also spoke on behalf of CARICOM Ministers of Health.

The event which coincided with the Twenty-sixth Meeting of the Directing of the Council of PAHO and the Caucus of CARICOM Ministers of Health, included CARICOM Ministers of Health, health officials, members of the Diplomatic Corps in Washington DC and representatives of other CARICOM institutions.

The Commission which held its inaugural meeting on 8 September 2003, in Barbados, comprises Sir George Alleyne, (Chairman), Dr. Compton Bourne of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), Mr. Havelock Brewster, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB); Prof. Terrence Forrester, Tropical Medical Research Institute, UWI; Dr. James Hospedales, Caribbean Epidemiology Centre (CAREC); Dr. Len Ishmael, OECS Secretariat; Dr. Jeffrey Koplan, Emory University; Dr. Stanley Lalta, Ministry of Health Jamaica; Prof. Elsie LeFranc, Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies, UWI; Prof. Clive Thomas, Institute of Development Studies University of Guyana; Prof. Karl Theodore, UWI and Sir Dwight Venner, Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB).