[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 72 (Thursday, May 26, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1125-E1126]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS AND THE CARIBBEAN

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 26, 2005

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, there has been significant debate in recent 
years regarding the chances of the developing world reaching

[[Page E1126]]

the Millennium Challenge Goals (MCG). Reaching the goals will be a 
trying task, but some regions of the world seem to be making 
satisfactory progress. The Caribbean is one such region that has high 
hopes for success in this important endeavor.
  On the occasion of a recent Inter-American Development Bank seminar 
on the issue of the Millennium Challenge Goals, Dame Billie Miller, 
Minister of Foreign Affairs for the island of Barbados, wrote an 
informative May 3rd Op-Ed which describes the prospects and challenges 
facing the Caribbean in regards to achieving the Millennium Challenge 
Goals.
  Dame Miller's overall view is that the Caribbean's progress to date 
has been very promising. Indeed, the United Nations Development 
Program's Regional Report for the Caribbean gives a rather bright 
prognosis for the majority of the Caribbean's nations in their MGD 
progression. However, some countries continue to face significant 
obstacles.
  For example, Haiti remains mired in political instability and 
economic impoverishment. Though it contains 50 percent of the 
Caribbean's population it is the region's poorest country. The nation 
of Guyana, though blessed with abundant natural resources, is saddled 
with an extremely high ratio of debt, making it the Caribbean's only 
Highly Indebted Poor Country.
  Despite the Caribbean's overall progress, Dame Miller emphasizes that 
there remains threats to the region which must be accounted for. Most 
pressing is the region's ongoing vulnerability to natural disasters.
  We are all aware of the calamity the Caribbean region faced in 2004 
due to Hurricanes Charley, Frances, and Ivan, and Tropical Storm 
Jeanne, which caused billions of dollars in damage. Thousands lost 
their lives, and the region's tourism and agricultural sectors, on 
which so many islands depend, was battered. The production of major 
agricultural exports for many countries is still on hold several months 
later. The Caribbean in concert with its neighbors, like the United 
States, must continue to address the issue of disaster response and 
mitigation. With efficient and functioning systems in place, these 
disasters need not be so devastating to the region.
  Dame Miller also emphasizes the region's need to broaden access to 
education, as well as information and communications technology, for 
all its residents. Doing so will help to spur the economic development 
of the region, and also allow for the greater participation of the 
Caribbean population in civic and political life.
  She also stresses the importance of the region's continuing efforts 
at regional economic integration. In the face of increasing 
globalization and trade liberalization, Dame Miller argues that the 
Caribbean must solidify their economic and trade ties, in route to a 
Caribbean Single Market Economy, which would remove all barriers to 
trade, capital movement, and technology and manpower transfer. Dame 
Miller foresees such an integration being achieved by 2006.
  I sincerely thank Dame Miller for her insightful opinions. She 
reminds us, that while the Caribbean will undoubtedly face challenges 
in its socio-economic evolution, its dedication to addressing these 
challenges, and its ability to harness its immense potential, will 
ultimately determine its future success.

              [From the New York Carib News, May 3, 2005]

 Caribbean May Defy ``Overwhelming Odds''--As Region Seeks To Improve 
             People's Living Standards in Challenging Times

       In this first decade of the 21st century, in a post 9/11, 
     post Enron World the time seems hardly propitious for the 
     removal of obstacles to the achievement of the Millennium 
     Development Goals nor the realization of the 0.7 percent of 
     overseas Development Assistance Commitment.
       Progress (towards the achievement of the Millennium Goals 
     set by the world's leaders summit in 2000) has been far from 
     uniform across the world--or for that matter across the 
     Goals. There are large disparities across and within 
     countries. In terms of priorities for attention, the 
     developing world is divided into well-organized categories: 
     the LDC's (less developed countries), of which Haiti is the 
     only member in the Caribbean, although with a population of 8 
     million, it accounts for over 50 percent of the 14 million 
     citizens of the Caribbean Community, or Caricom, as it is 
     known; the HIPC (highly indebted poor) countries, of which 
     Guyana, the seat of the Caricom secretariat, is the only one 
     among the Caricom states; and finally, the poorest of the 
     poor. Small, middle incomes, mostly island countries, are, as 
     we would say in the Caribbean, neither fish, fowl nor good 
     red herring. We are therefore acutely aware that self-
     reliance and national and sub-regional actions will be the 
     defining imperative in our efforts to achieve the targets of 
     the Millennium Development Goals, MDGs.
       In that respect, and defying the overwhelming odds, the 
     prognosis for the achievement of the MDGs in the Caribbean is 
     very promising. In fact, the United Nations Development 
     Program's Regional Report on the matter gives an optimistic 
     outlook for most of our countries in respect of at least six 
     of the eight goals. But the region faces a number of 
     challenges to the achievement of the Goals.
       Foremost among them is the vulnerability to economic 
     shocks, and to every natural disaster known to humankind, be 
     it hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, mudslides, earthquakes or 
     flood.
       The catastrophic hurricane season of 2004 had a grave 
     impact on the socio-economic development prospects of many of 
     the small islands of the Caribbean. Decades of painstaking 
     human and financial investment in social development, 
     representing several years' worth of gross domestic product 
     were lost in a matter of hours.
       The devastating Indian Ocean tsunami in December serves as 
     a stark reminder of the vulnerability of many developing 
     nations to natural disasters.
       Globalization, education, information and communication 
     technology all offer the potential for reducing social 
     exclusion by creating economic conditions for greater 
     prosperity through higher levels of growth and employment, 
     and by providing new avenues for community participation.
       Conversely, there is the risk of an ever-widening gap 
     between those who have and control the resources, the capital 
     and knowledge of the global economy and those who are 
     excluded. The challenge for all of us is to fashion policies, 
     which reduce this risk and maximize this new potential. 
     Various studies in Latin American and the Caribbean have 
     shown that even in the presence of steady rates of economic 
     growth, a reduction of inequality is not guaranteed. Clearly, 
     the solution does not lie exclusively in wealth creation.
       Globalization has brought tremendous benefits to 
     significant portions of the world, but at the same time, 
     large sections of the world have experienced far too few of 
     its benefits, while others still, particularly in the poorest 
     countries, remain totally marginalized. Many feel threatened 
     by the way these processes have affected their communities, 
     endangering their jobs and widening the gap between rich and 
     poor. For them globalization has not delivered on the 
     promises of vast development opportunities on a global scale, 
     nor has it lessened the prevalence of economic disparities 
     and social injustice.
       For the Caribbean, the only sensible response to 
     globalization and trade liberalization, and to the inevitable 
     disappearance of trade preferences has been to expedite the 
     deepening of the Caricom integration process. At this time, 
     the members of the Caribbean Community are fully engaged in 
     the most ambitious of endeavors to consolidate our market 
     place and economic space through the implementation of the 
     Caribbean Single Market and Economy, CSME, which provides for 
     the removal of barriers to trade, goods, services, movement 
     of capital, technology and skilled persons and also to the 
     establishment of letterpresses. We expect that the CSME will 
     be fully operational by 2006, making us the only integrated 
     region, apart from the European Union to achieve such a 
     status, and readying us to better access the global market 
     process.

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