Minister Kamina Johnson Smith Commends Belize’s Consistency as Bridge Between SICA and CARICOM

One of the participants of the meeting is the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Jamaica, Kamina Johnson Smith.  The Jamaican politician also wears the hat for the Chairperson of the CARICOM Counsel of Foreign and Community Relations (COFCOR).  She spoke with Love News saying that Belize has shown consistency in being the link between the SICA and CARICOM countries.

Sen. Kamina Johnson Smith, Chairperson – CARICOM: “I’m honoured to represent the CARICOM Council of Foreign and Community Relations, that is the COFCOR, which is the gathering of foreign ministers of CARICOM who essentially work on how to better coordinate our foreign policies including with third-party partners whether they be organisations or countries. We are pleased to be here today and I have to express thanks to Minister Courtenay and indeed to the government and people of Belize for their warm hospitality that they have extended to our delegations as well as for their consistency in seeking to be that bridge not only geographically but as a member of both CARICOM and the Central American System, SICA, to continue to seek to optimize the engagement and collaboration between our two organizations and indeed subregions. I mean there’s a history of effort by heads of government and by ministers of foreign affairs and indeed by our countries to work on improving how it is we leverage our respective strengths to deal with our common challenges, both subregions. And most recently in 2022, there was a declaration of San Pedro when the revised plan of action was pulled together ensuring that there were bases, heads of areas and sectors, which were identified by heads of government of both CARICOM and SICA that should be targeted for cooperation. Today’s meeting is intended to look at some of those areas and to see how we can implement, how we can strengthen our cooperation to actually implement some of these cooperative areas. It’s one thing to make a declaration and to agree on areas that we should cooperate and another thing to try to operationalize how we focus and how we get things done. And today’s meeting is intended to try to take us on the path.”

Tomorrow will see the opening session of the 57th Summit of the Heads of Government of SICA.  The event is happening at the Umaya Resort in Placencia.