Prime Minister Mia Mottley reiterated a call for a new paradigm to deal with the changing global situation as the developing countries continue to fight the battle for access to concessionary financing “that is affordable and is capable of being the platform for our development”.
She was speaking on Tuesday morning during the first ever virtual Africa-Caribbean Community (CARICOM) summit.
“Because at the end of the day when a country like Ghana and a country like Greece go to the international capital market, how do we explain them having the same international credit ratings, but Ghana having to borrow at multiple times more than the costs at which Greece borrows at.
“Simply because Greece belongs to the European Union and the international financial community values the definition of safe passage which are within the European Union in a way that Africa and the Caribbean do not have access to these same assets. I hope we will continue to work together to reverse these fortunes”.
Mottley said that she was also comforted by recent meetings with finance ministers from Africa “who like us recognise that we have to spend time to do the heavy lifting and to create the definitions that will allow for a level playing field with respect to the cost of borrowing in our region”.
The Prime Minister also said that it was important for both Africa and the Caribbean to be fully represented at the upcoming United Nations conference marking the 20th anniversary of 2001 UN World Conference against racism.
She said at that conference held in Durban all the countries of the world “with the exception of a handful of western countries agreed that the time had come for us to start to discuss reparation.
“Since that date 20 years ago we have had many things happening culminating in Black Lives Matter. There is nothing like an idea whose time has come and I hope that we leave this summit prepared to coordinate a position as we go to the UN to ensure that we now begin to discuss the absence of a development compact when our countries became independent, thee extraction of wealth over centuries and the fact that our future development must rest equally on reparative justice if we are to give or people a chance to be able to access the development opportunities …but have been deprived because of that continued extraction of wealth over time”.
The summit ended with an acknowledgement of the need for closer socio-economic relations as well as establishing the infrastructure that would allow for the greater movement of people from the two regions towards each other.
Kenya’s President, Uhuru Kenyatta, who co-chaired the meeting that was addressed by a number of African and CARICOM leaders, described the near four-hour deliberations as a “very successful summit” ‘that was held under the theme “Unity Across Continents and Oceans: Opportunities for Deepening Integration”. (CMC)
