Beyond emotional regionalism

I believe the idea of Caribbean unity - in all its various geographical/historical/political manifestations - is something that enchants most (not all) people who live in our region.

I would say it comforts rather than disturbs a majority of Caribbean nationals and generates a measure of warmth and affection. This is particularly so for those of us who have come to know and understand this unique space.

And, yes, there are some who yearn for other intimate, remote alignments as wholesale substitutes rather than as convenient extensions. Others who pursue exclusive internal alliances. This has been so over the many years; not only now that the absence of collective self-esteem is being geo-politically challenged.

Yet, none of this erases shared, immovable attributes related to human experience - history, culture, and economic endeavour.

Members of the Caribbean Community (green)

Since 1973, Caricom has become part of the emotional vocabulary of regional unity. Even among the sceptics and recently converted opponents of multilateralism, there has been room for sentimental attachment. There are flavours of it in sport and music and art.

Not unlike our independence experience, there is no substantial nostalgia among younger folk when it comes to the federal experiment of 1958-1962 or for CARIFTA (though the latter persists as titular anachronism in more than one sporting arena). Where emotions on these persist, they are largely positive or reflect lost or fading love.

Not much of this specific perspective is captured in the inaugural edition of the Regional Institutional Risk Monitor published on September 1 by the Caribbean Business Review (CBR) under former Caricom Assistant Secretary General, Joseph Cox. I think it should have.

The Monitor does, however, offer an implicit suggestion that beyond integration sentimentality – what might be called emotional regionalism - “functional regionalism” is what can and will make the difference between the success or failure of the movement, in its disparate parts, to collectively achieve developmental objectives.

The publication raises the fundamental question of whether key Caricom institutions are “fit for purpose” through an assessment of “institutional risk across the Caribbean Regional Architecture.” Big words to, in effect, gauge success or failure.

No doubt, the region has conducted introspective exercises before. During my brief tenure at the Caricom Secretariat in the mid-90s, then management consultant, Dr Suruj Rambachan undertook a review of the effectiveness of the Secretariat in delivery of its respective mandates. I cannot recall the grade/s earned.

There have since been several similar projects, often at the insistence of international benefactors. But the CBR Monitor attempts to dissect the question of “fitness” by assessing the qualitative performances of four key institutions: the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) and the Caricom Secretariat itself.

“Any assessment of Caribbean regional institutions must begin by avoiding a common analytical error: Caricom is not synonymous with the Caricom Secretariat. The regional architecture comprises several layers of institutions with different legal foundations, responsibilities and relationships to Member States,” the report says.

The CBR Report

The report also identifies the methodological challenge of examining four institutions that are not “variants of the same organisational model.” (Read the report here: CBR Report.

Through it, though, readers can acquire a better understanding of the fact that the durability and effectiveness of integration efforts depend much more on the quality, resilience, and performance of our regional institutions than on the romance of integration.

They have been created largely because of the undeniable absence of scale, specialist expertise, financial resources, and bargaining power to do some important things on our own as single entities. Countries and delusional politicians who think otherwise are often rudely awakened to this fact – whatever their typically unreliable external dalliances.

We ought to have learned this during the course of the Covid-19 pandemic as CARPHA was called to action at a time when external friendships grew lukewarm and even cold. Let’s also see what’s currently happening regarding the accommodation of third-country deportations. Friends indeed.

The report does not get into these kinds of details but spends time on whether the selected institutions have been successfully leveraging their authority, expertise, convening power, and partnerships in the conduct of their affairs.

The perception of repeated failure has meanwhile not been matched by effective programmes of public awareness and education, and regional bureaucrats have not all been convinced that open communication provides the best avenues for interrogation of performance.

This goes beyond affection and communion. Emotional regionalism amounts to almost nothing without functional regionalism. The CBR risk monitor makes the point more strongly than most other self-diagnoses of the last few decades.