People are the heart of sustainable development

-Caricom environment ministers

The region’s sustainable development rests heavily on its human capital. This is the consensus of Caribbean Community (Caricom) ministers and other officials at the 39th special meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) on the environment and sustainable development.

The meeting which opened in Georgetown, last Friday, was mandated by Caricom heads of government to prepare a Caricom position for negotiations at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+ 20) slated for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in June of this year.

In addressing the opening ceremony, the chair of COTED, Belize Fisheries, Sustainable Development and Indigenous People Minister Lisel Alamilla pointed to the critical importance of investing in human resource capacities to guarantee the region’s sustainability.

She highlighted a slew of initiatives and programmes which her country had undertaken since the UN Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, noting that the progress made in Belize could be attributed to the development of that country’s human resources.

“These people are the ones knowledgeable and trained in the strategies and plans needed to pursue a sustainable development path… Without their understanding and support of the principles of sustainable development, Belize would not be in the position it now is, poised to be a global example of sustainability,” Minister Alamilla asserted.

She further challenged her colleague ministers to “plan… national development strategies in concert with the principles of sustainable development,” articulated on Agenda 21 of the 1992 Rio de Janeiro conference.

“If we do so, our Regional Development Strategy will be easier to implement,” she concluded.

Natural Resources and Environment Minister Robert Persaud underscored the importance of charting and maintaining a pathway to sustainability that embraced natural and human capital to benefit the people of the region.

To do so, however, Minister Persaud said, it was necessary to break the fallacy which suggested that “a nation must choose between national development stimulated by end products of trade and economic development, and maintaining environmental integrity”. He explained that in Guyana, the approach had been to strike a balance between “creating economic opportunities for the people, while fostering social livelihood, development and maintaining natural capital in a manner that fulfils global obligations”. The Rio+ 20 Conference will focus on two themes: the development of a green economy within the context of sustainable development and poverty reduction; and the institutional framework for sustainable development. The COTED meeting is also reviewing the UNGA Rio+ 20 Zero Draft Outcome Document in order to strategise on the region’s approach to the negotiations on the document.

In this context, Caricom Secretary General Ambassador Irwin LaRocque stressed that any Caricom position going into the conference must be one that placed people at the centre of sustainable development, “focusing on the needs and aspirations of human beings and their responsibility towards present and future generations”. He added that “the region’s most valuable asset – its human resources – must be given every opportunity to fulfil their potential and contribute to the development of a green economy”. This, he stated, would require retraining and reorientation of the labour force at all levels.

Officer-in-Charge at the Human and Social Development Directorate at the secretariat Myrna Bernard, who chaired the opening ceremony, noted that the region’s ability to compete in the current global market and within the context of the green economy, depended on parallel transformations in “our social systems and in particular, our education and health systems”. Both of which she argued were pivotal to human development.

“Significant rethinking and refocusing of the education and all other aspects of our social development systems must feature significantly as we address the enabling environment required for transitioning to the green economy,” she concluded.