SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT - Excerpt from the Communiqué issued on the conclusion of the Thirty-sixth Regular Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community

Heads of Government, acutely aware of the opportunity provided to build truly vibrant societies and resilient economies and chart a new era of sustainable development for the Region and the world, discussed the culmination of three on-going and integrated global processes.  They noted that the Region has been actively involved in the processes which will be brought to a climax in major inter-related high level International Meetings in the latter half of 2015.

Heads of Government were of the view that a negotiated and agreed outcome at the first of the conferences, the Third International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD3) in Addis Ababa in July, should contribute to, and support the implementation of the Post-2015 Development Agenda. In that regard, Heads of Government looked forward to the identification of the financial resources, including new resources, required to assist developing countries in addressing their major development challenges, including those which will arise from implementation of Post-2015 Development Agenda and the SAMOA Pathway, trade liberalisation, global environmental degradation, including climate change and global security issues.

This Agenda will be the focus of a Special Summit on Sustainable Development at the United Nations in September.  Heads of Government noted that this Special Summit will seek to get world leaders to embrace a new Agenda and set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) designed to achieve a global paradigm shift in thinking about sustainable development and in the mechanisms needed to achieve the goals.

Heads of Government welcomed the intention of the SDGs to end poverty, transform the world to better meet human needs and the necessities of economic transformation, while protecting the environment, ensuring peace and realising human rights.

Heads of Government looked forward to the adoption for the first time of a universal, legally binding agreement at the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Paris in December. Such an agreement will enable us to combat climate change and adapt to and mitigate its effects while effectively boosting the transition towards resilient, low-carbon societies and economies.

Heads of Government agreed to continue to strengthen advocacy for conditions important to the Community, as a region of Small Island Developing States and low lying coastal states (SIDS). They emphasised the peculiar nature of SIDS which made them a “special case” for sustainable development and called for measures to address their inherent and permanent vulnerabilities and in particular, facilitate resilience building in economic, natural, and social systems.

In this regard, Heads of Government committed to:

•         ensuring that the goals articulated in the SAMOA Pathway were fully embedded in these processes; to building on existing cooperation and programme initiatives;

•         giving urgent attention to elaborating a regional, advocacy, partnership and resource mobilisation strategy to support the implementation of the region’s priorities as captured in the Post 2015 Development Agenda and the SAMOA Pathway;

•         partnering with other developing countries, in particular SIDS, for increased advocacy for debt relief;

•         advocating for consideration by the UN, in collaboration with the international financial institutions, to the design of  new instruments beyond the use of GDP per capita, appropriate for the valid measurement of development progress.

With regard to the Climate change negotiations the Conference adopted a Declaration on Climate Action which sets out the region’s agreed positions.

Read communique here