I commence with a heartfelt recognition of the plight of the young high-school girls of Chibok, Borno State, abducted in April of this year, the two teenaged Indian girls raped and hanged in Uttar Pradesh in May and the 25 year old pregnant Pakistani woman stoned to death in May for marrying against her family’s wishes.  The poem of Mahadai Das of Guyana, My Finer Steel Will Grow, aptly describes despair and hope as we confront the issue of gender-based violence.  I will read the poem in order to keep the memory of the girls and this young woman alive.

The Thirty-Fifth Regular Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) was held at Dickenson Bay, Antigua and Barbuda, from 1-4 July 2014. The Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, the Honourable Gaston Browne, chaired the proceedings.

The vision of the leaders of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) articulated forty one (41) years ago has translated in today’s mandate of achieving regional integration through engaging, promoting and providing opportunities to Caribbean Member States to collectively direct the way forward. Indeed, within CARICOM, a considerable percentage of our population is between the ages of 18-30.

(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana)     Ms. Marion Bethel, the eleventh recipient of the CARICOM Triennial Award for Women, in her acceptance speech, struck a resounding note  in her call to governments and civil society “to commit  wholeheartedly to zero tolerance for violence against women and girls” and to the “pursuit of a fifty percent representation of women in Parliament”.

(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana)     As the Region continues to take steps to respond to the economic challenges confronting it, Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Heads of Government are placing increased emphasis on the private sector as the engine of sustainable growth.