CARICOM accredits first New Zealand Ambassador

Georgetown, January 22, 2015.- The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) on Tuesday, 20 January 2016, accredited the first Plenipotentiary Representative of New Zealand to the Community.

Her Excellency Jan Henderson, who is also accredited to several CARICOM Member States, presented her letters of credence to CARICOM Secretary-General, Ambassador Irwin LaRocque in a simple ceremony at the Headquarters of the CARICOM Secretariat in Georgetown, Guyana.

In his remarks, the Secretary-General said New Zealand would understand the challenges that confronted small states like those of CARICOM, given that it was also a relatively small state and because of its ties to the Pacific Island States, with which CARICOM shared close cooperation.

CARICOM-New Zealand relations were spurred through exchanges, including the New Zealand Foreign Minister’s attendance at the meetings of the CARICOM Council for Foreign and Community Relations (COFCOR) in 2013 and 2014. A Memorandum of Understanding was later signed by the Foreign Minister and the CARICOM Secretary-General, defining co-operation arrangements in areas including agriculture, climate change, renewable energy and disaster risk management.

As he congratulated the High Commissioner on her country’s election as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, the Secretary-General expressed confidence that the CARICOM-New Zealand collaboration would extend to the international arena particularly in the Commonwealth and United Nations. He stressed the importance of the issue of climate change to the Community, noting that in moving forward, it “must be integral” to cooperation discussions.

The Secretary-General noted that inspite of the challenges posed by the lingering effects of the global economic and financial crisis, as well as the graduation of many of CARICOM countries out of concessional development financing, the Region was assiduously pursuing actions to build resilience. In this context, the Community’s Strategic Plan for 2015-2019 identifies strategic priorities for building the economic, social, environmental and technological resiliencies of the Community. In this vein, he said co-operation with partners like New Zealand was necessary for the Community to fulfil its goal of sustainable development for our Community.

The New Zealand High Commissioner said her accreditation demonstrated the firm desire of her government to build on the traditional linkages with the Caribbean.

Pledging to do her utmost to strengthen existing linkages and to create new ones, she said work had already begun with the establishment of permanent diplomatic presence in the Region, through the New Zealand High Commission located in Bridgetown.

New Zealand, she informed, had engaged Dominica, St Lucia, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis and St Vincent and the Grenadines in geothermal energy projects and it was also continuing its scholarship offerings which has a complement of 20 Caribbean students. Noting that she expected that number to increase as the country expand its outreach in the coming months, she added that it had also begun to identify small projects in sports, women’s and youth empowerment, agriculture and environmental protection in the countries to which it was accredited.

The High Commissioner said that New Zealand could be a bridge between CARICOM and the Pacific Island Forum which, for the most part, consisted of small island states similar to CARICOM. Secretary-General LaRocque welcomed the idea given that small island states shared unique problems.

CARICOM has identified the deepening of foreign policy coordination as one of its strategic priorities for 2015-2019.