(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) “The creation of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy is vital to our survival as small states, critical to our development within the prevailing global economic system, and central to our strategy to improve the quality of life of our people.” This, according to Dr Hilary Brown, CARICOM Secretariat’s Programme Manager, Culture and Community Development, as she addressed the Opening Ceremony of the four-day Caribbean Youth Exchange Conference underway in Haiti on Thursday.

(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Prime Minister of Saint Lucia, the Hon Stephenson King wants “all hands on deck" for what he considered “tough negotiations” in the run up to the Fifteenth Meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP15) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change slated for Copenhagen, Denmark in December 2009.

  (CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) When Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) rose from around the table late Saturday, 4 July 2009, they had completed a formidable agenda of items aimed at steering the Community’s course, items that were especially challenging such as the free movement of skills and the global economic and financial crisis.

(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Ambassador Gail Mathurin has been appointed Director General in the Office of Trade Negotiations within the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat.

The Office of Trade Negotiations (OTN) was established as a Specialised Department as a result of the incorporation of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM) into the Secretariat. The OTN will be based in Kingston, Jamaica, with units in Barbados and Geneva.

(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) “The public service must be made aware of their integral role in advancing the objectives and implementing the decisions of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM),” said His Excellency Edwin Carrington, CARICOM Secretary-General.

He was at the time addressing the Board of Directors of the Caribbean Centre for Development Administration (CARICAD). They met at the headquarters of the CARICOM Secretariat, Georgetown, Guyana, on Wednesday July 8, 2009 on the occasion of their twenty-ninth meeting.

Madame Chair
Most Honourable Professor Sir Kenneth Hall, Former Governor-General of Jamaica
Executive Director and Other Board Members of the Caribbean Centre for Development Administration (CARICAD)
Professors Ralph Carnegie and Winston Anderson
Assistant Secretary-General LaRocque and other Distinguished Participants
Ladies and Gentlemen

  (CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) More than a hundred representatives of the Services Sector in the Caribbean will gather in St. John’s, Antigua and Barbuda next week to begin charting a more structured approach to the development of the Sector within the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME).

(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) The 14-member CARICOM Commission on Youth Development is meeting on Monday, for the seventh and last time to add the finishing touches to their much anticipated Report.

(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Youth - Making the Caribbean is the theme of a four-day Caribbean Youth Exchange set for Port Au Prince, Haiti, this week-end, as the CARICOM Commission on Youth Development (CCYD) steps up its programme of sensitisation on its research findings, ahead of the proposed Heads of Government Summit on Youth, later this year.