Analysis by RICKEY SINGH

AS WE FOLLOW United States President Barack Obama's inspiring, relentless efforts to win decisive congressional support for his imaginative plan for health care reform, I wonder if, with humility, Caribbean Community leaders could also summon some of that "Obama-like spirit" in the interest of advancing the major goals of CARICOM.

If they could summon at least half of Obama's passion - if not eloquence - to inspire public confidence, then we would probably witness pessimism giving way to a new hope for the transformation of CARICOM into a seamless regional economy, despite today's worsening economic gloom.

Alas, as a few cannot get past sterile political rhetoric, even the more intellectually competent and versatile of CARICOM's leadership seem to lack the required commitment to subdue pessimism and promote optimism to show, in the famous words of the first black United States President, "Yes, we can."

Yes, that is, when it comes to scaling even formidable barriers to achieving fundamental goals for the advancement of the regional integration movement to its ultimate objective of a single economic space for the peoples of one Community.

Daunting task

In America, Obama has assigned himself the unenviable leadership task to be the last president to challenge America to revolutionise the quality of health care befitting a great nation.

He faces a most daunting task in securing bipartisan victory in Congress with the majority of Republicans remaining opposed and in having to also contend with a few still wavering Democrats, as he presses on even as his overall popularity begins to slide.

Obama is a man on a mission for America with a health care reform for which the prospects of more than an estimated 47 million Americans without any health insurance and another 25 million underinsured are at stake.

So why cannot our CARICOM leaders - all of whom say, publicly anyway, how much they admire him - seek to do for CARICOM what they talk about in terms of advancing its goals?

Caribbean people are aware of the fundamental differences in the history, culture, politics and leadership styles between the United States and our region.

Given our admitted interdependence and shared regional objectives, there's much that our Community governments can learn from Obama in terms of people-focused communication strategies, promoting bipartisanship on key social, political and economic issues; and simply appearing so loath to take decisive action.

Even if Obama fails to achieve the success he seeks, the remarkable political and communication strategies he has been pursuing across the political divide, could be valuable reference points for regional leaders.

Successfully marketing the goals of CARICOM is not only a primary responsibility of the Community Secretariat, overextended as it is and ill-equipped in terms of executive powers governments are still reluctant to approve.

It is, essentially, a shared responsibility of the CARICOM members to use their information agencies and communication facilities to help sensitise the public on policies, programmes and decisions to which they had committed.

Of course, the Community at 36, struggles along in a situation where, for example: meetings of cabinet ministers responsible for information and communication no longer take place; CARICOM's Bureau of Management remains a poor mechansim for advancing decisions between ministerial councils and heads of government; the quasi-cabinet system that was expediently established to forestall the creation of a high-level empowered administrative structure, seems to be in urgent need of revamping, if not abolition.

In the absence of a standing governance mechanism, vested with executive authority, to drive the process of implementation and provide guidance for the heads of government, CARICOM will continue to drift in a sea of uncertainties about the future of its single economy project, needed more now than ever, at this time of global economic crisis.