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| Dr. The Hon. Timothy Harris |
BASSETERRE, ST. KITTS, OCTOBER 4TH 2005 - Close to 100 delegates from across the region are in St. Kitts to attend the Caribbean Regional Follow-up Meeting on the Implementation of the Mauritius Strategy for Small Island Developing States (SIDS).
The Meeting from October 5th to 7th, at the St. Kitts Marriott Resort, begins with the Official Opening Ceremony at which Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. the Hon. Timothy Harris, will deliver the Feature Address and declare the Conference open.
Participants will discuss the coordination of national and regional agencies; partnership initiatives; consideration of national and regional mechanisms for the most effective implementation of the Mauritius Strategy, and national and regional sustainable development efforts.
"There will be a panel discussion and dialogue on critical challenges and opportunities to be addressed by the region. The objective is to begin to distill the priorities among the range of issues address in the Strategy that should be the focus of the first implementation period," said St. Kitts and Nevis' Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. the Hon. Timothy Harris.
Stakeholders will also discuss partnership initiatives with a view to including these in a regional indicative programming schedule for the first biennium.
The active participation of representatives of civil society and the donor community is to be pursued as this discussion is intended to elicit stakeholder and donor response to the thematic priorities identified and partnership initiatives proposed for early attention.
The first International Meeting was held in 1994 in Barbados and this meeting produced the Barbados Programme of Action (BPOA) for the Sustainable Development of SIDS.
The Mauritius International Meeting was held in January 2005 to review the BPOA and produce new strategies for SIDS on development in the twenty-first century. Issues highlighted in Mauritius were Environmental Issues such as climate change and the rising seal level; Trade and Culture. Health concerns, particularly HIV/AIDS and other pandemic communicable and non-communicable diseases were also discussed.
That Meeting produced the Mauritius Strategy. One of the key issues in the document was the follow-up and implementation of the decisions made in Mauritius.
It was following this meeting, that the Government of St. Kitts and Nevis offered to host the Caribbean segment of the regional follow-up Meeting to ensure the implementation of the decisions.
Every Member State of CARICOM, as well as Cuba, the Dominican Republic and the non-independent territories of the Caribbean have been invited to attend, along with the CARICOM Secretariat, the OECS Secretariat, the regional offices of the United Nations, and Civil Society.
