Many  countries in Southeast Asia have set ambitious targets for transitioning to a low-carbon, climate-resilient future, including improved management of agriculture, forestry, and other land uses. However, the financing required to achieve these targets far exceeds existing public sector resources and international development assistance. As a result, greater private investment will be required to achieve these targets. Although private sector finance for renewable energy has been increasing rapidly, challenges remain in scaling up financing for sustainable landscapes.
On March 29, 2017, USAID/Asia, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, and the Asia Low Emissions Development Strategies Partnership (Asia LEDS) hosted a regional workshop on “Convening Private Sector Investment in Climate-Smart Commodity Production in Southeast Asia” in Bangkok. The USAID-funded Climate Economic Analysis for Development, Investment and Resilience (CEADIR) Activity organized and implemented this workshop.
Approximately 90 private and public sector representatives participated, including multinational and domestic corporations, financial institutions, investment firms, small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), commercial commodity certification platforms, and government agencies. Workshop participants discussed their experiences in promoting private, climate-smart investment in key agricultural and forestry product value chains and identified challenges that limit this investment. They recommended the following priority actions to help overcome these challenges:
● Access to financing: Improve SMEs and primary producers’ access to financing for climate-smart agriculture and forestry through aggregation, loan guarantees, and other de-risking mechanisms.
● Policies: Reduce barriers and increase incentives for climate-smart financing, and enhance private sector engagement in developing, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating policies, regulations, financing, and support.
● Communications: Facilitate regular dialogues among national and subnational policy makers, businesses, and small-scale producers.
● Data: Increase resources and capacity for measurement, reporting, and verification of greenhouse gas emission reductions to document progress toward national climate change commitments.
 
After the workshop, CEADIR identified country-specific needs for increasing private investment and public-private sector coordination for climate-smart agriculture and forestry in Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, and Vietnam. CEADIR also analyzed business models for private sector financing of sustainable rice and forest production in the region. Utilizing this analysis, CEADIR collaborated with FAO in convening a second regional workshop in Bangkok on October 10-12, 2017, engaging more than 60 private and public sector representatives, including representatives from Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Burma, the Philippines, and Thailand. During the workshop, CEADIR highlighted private sector recommendations for accelerating climate-smart finance. It also supported governments in developing country-specific strategies with priority policy and program changes to increase private investment in low-emission, sustainable agriculture and forestry. In addition, CEADIR identified market needs and opportunities for donors and development partners to showcase more sustainable business models and to support public-private blended finance solutions. CEADIR analyses also demonstrated the potential for private sector climate-smart investments to help countries achieve their national climate change targets (i.e., Nationally Determined Contributions).

• Accelerating Private Sector Investment for Clean Energy and Sustainable Landscapes in Asia
• CEADIR Series: Accelerating Investment for Climate-Smart Agriculture and Forestry in Southeast Asia
• Enabling Private Sector Climate-Smart Agriculture and Forestry Investment in Southeast Asia: Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)
• Enabling Private Sector Climate-Smart Agriculture and Forestry Investment in Southeast Asia: Sustainable Rice Platform (SRP)
• Assessing Capacity Development Needs for Climate-Smart Forestry and Agriculture - Snapshot: Cambodia
• Assessing Capacity Development Needs for Climate-Smart Forestry and Agriculture - Snapshot: Indonesia
• Assessing Capacity Development Needs for Climate-Smart Forestry and Agriculture - Snapshot: The Philippines
• Assessing Capacity Development Needs for Climate-Smart Forestry and Agriculture - Snapshot: Vietnam

About the authors  

Mikell O’Mealy is a Senior Associate with Abt Associates’ International Development Division working on global climate change, natural resources management, and governance with countries, communities, and development partners in the Asia Pacific region and worldwide. She has 20 years of experience building capacity and cooperation at international, regional, and local levels. She has an M.S. in Marine Resources Management and a B.S. in Biology from Oregon State University.

Charlotte Mack-Heller, a Senior Associate with Abt Associates’ International Development Division, works on issues related to resilience, adaptation, and land use. She has worked closely with diverse stakeholders in 15 countries to build resilience and sustainability across a range of economically critical sectors, such as urban systems, infrastructure, agriculture, energy, water, and the coastal environment. She holds a M.P.P. and M.S. from the University of Michigan and a B.S. in Environmental Science from the University of Delaware.
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Dr. Eric L. Hyman is an Economist in the Economic Policy Office of the USAID Economic Growth, Education, and Environment Bureau. He is the contracting officer's representative for the CEADIR Activity. He has 38 years of experience in natural resource economics, project design, monitoring and evaluation, cost-benefit analysis, environmental and social impact assessment, small- and micro-enterprise development and finance, and private and public sector capacity development. He holds a Ph.D. and M.R.P. in Environmental Planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a B.A. in Economics and Environmental Science from the University of Virginia at Charlottesville.

Every human being lives on Planet Earth and it is our responsibility to protect it for ourselves
and for future generations.  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC) has
emphasized that human actions are the principal cause of global warming and its ill effects.
The IPCC’s recent 1.5C report highlights the need for greater climate action around the world,
given that the major challenge has shifted from the stabilization of global greenhouse gases to
the urgency in slowing down the acceleration in the growth of those gases.
 
In the twenty-first century, climate change and climate vulnerability, including the costs of adaptation and mitigation, pose major challenges to developing economies. In addition, the small open economies in the Caribbean will simultaneously need to address other outstanding issues, such as high levels of debt, sustained economic growth, job creation, capacity development and poverty reduction. These conditions are best addressed in the context of multilateral agreements and the implementation of effective structural reforms.

 
The Challenges Facing the Caribbean
 
Climate change presents unique challenges for SIDS.  This is particularly so, due to their small geographical location, isolation and exposure. In 2013, the scientific evidence in the fifth assessment report of the IPCC, 2013 showed that over the last 20 years, the average temperature in Latin America and Caribbean has increased by about 0.1 degree Celsius per decade. In the  sub-regional hot spot in the Caribbean the warming is about twice the global mean. In  determining what  actions can  be taken by SIDS in the Caribbean to address the consequences of climate change, it is important to note   that although the sub-region contributes less than 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions, it is likely to suffer disproportional impacts. As such, the focus for Caribbean development practitioners should be to continue to emphasize adaptation to climate change, with mitigation as a supporting mechanism in their work programs.
 
These strategies need to be mainstreamed into national development policies and plans if they are to support the national vision and action. However, just as important as national actions, SIDS need to build momentum at the regional and international levels to drive their responsibility and motivation on climate change. This must include advocating for the strengthening of existing concessionary windows for technical assistance and financial flows for SIDS sustainable development and climate change.
 
Later this year, the United Nations (UN) Secretary General will host two major meetings. Firstly, there is a climate change meeting to build momentum and drive for a greater level of ambition ahead of 2020 Climate Change Summit. Secondly, the upcoming SIDS Review Meeting at the UN Headquarters, September, 2019 will review the progress that has been made in addressing the priorities of  SIDS. Caribbean SIDS need to call on the UN to strengthen its institutions and mechanisms to promote the implementation of the SAMOA pathway and the Paris Agreement. Without an effective SIDS platform, this group of countries could lose the various concessional lending facilities for development assistance offered by most donor agencies and partners including the existing recognition of SIDS in the UNFCCC processes.
 
The Caribbean SIDS should build their future on the action of the present and seize the opportunity to improve the quality of life of the Caribbean people by moving towards a more sustainable pattern of development. The UN meetings represent an invaluable opportunity for the international community to formulate an inclusive, fair and equitable strategy in which the exercise of the precautionary principle can prevent irreversible damage.
 
In the preparation of international agreements on climate change and sustainable development, there is need for  recognition of the different levels of development and asymmetries between the countries and regions.  Designing proposals and strategies to tackle climate change should not run counter to the pursuit of sustainable development but should advance the cause. Unilateral actions that curb existing flows of funding and access to additional financial resources will only exacerbate the problems and cause greater harm to developing countries,  particularly SIDS.
 
Garfield Barnwell

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Sir Alister died on April 20, 2019. We mourn his loss and extend our deepest  sympathy to his wife Lady Marjorie Mc Intyre and children, Arnold, Andrew, Helga and Nicholas. I was privileged to pay  tribute attention and the 2017 UWI Conference on the Economy that honored Sir Alister, which is reproduced below. It was entitled “Reflections on Sir Alister McIntyre- a unique brand and a colossus”.  It may well have been: ‘expressing gratitude to Sir Alister for touching my life’  

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This is indeed an opportunity to pay tribute to a Caribbean icon who has made such a monumental contribution to regional and international developments. They  encompass a creative vision and intellectual leadership that transformed academia, assisted in fashioning the regional integration movement and projected the role of the Caribbean within the construct of a new international economic order.  

                                                                                                                                      
I knew of Alister McIntyre long before I met him.  Those of us who studied in the University system and for that matter, anywhere in the UK in the 1960s, could not fail to be regaled with the outstanding academic feats of the brilliant Caribbean Student at the London School of Economic who graduated with First Class honours.  Nor can those of us who followed the sad demise of the West Indies Federation in 1962, fail to recall the role of the formidable regional revival team of William Demas, Alister McIntyre and Shridath Ramphal which master minded CARIFTA and its transition to CARICOM. 

For me whose seven (7) year stint of undergraduate and graduate studies was  in the metropolis in the UK, Canada and the USA, the thirst for analysis on Caribbean economic development was largely quenched by several articles written by Alister McIntyre in the Journal for Social and Economic Studies and the New World Magazines. Most pertinent however for me, studying in Canada at the time, was his 1966 book with Kari Levitt on The Political Economy of Canadian-West Indian Relations. 

When therefore in May 1968, the day after I completed my comprehensive examinations for the Ph.D at the University of British Columbia, l received a letter from the Registrar of UWI offering an appointment as a Junior Research Fellow at Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) St Augustine, I was ecstatic.  It didn’t matter that the salary offered was less than my Canada Council Graduate Fellowship, I was returning to the region — and guess what— to work with Allister McIntyre who was by then Director of the ISER. 

This had to be among the best professional decisions anyone could make. As it turned out, I was the beneficiary of Alister’s creative leadership and mentorship that supported, challenged, encouraged and trusted my ability and that of my colleagues.  Among those who joined the McIntyre clan at the same time, was  Edwin Carrington, who was to become the Secretary General of the African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Secretariat in Brussels and subsequently, CARICOM Secretary General for 18 years. In the latter position Sir Edwin walked in the footsteps of our mentor, “Mack”, and I served as his Assistant Secretary General (2000-2010). 

In the intervening years, it was my good fortune — not once, but twice — to actually witness at close range, Alister in full flight: first, as his Deputy Director for ISER 1972-1974 on the Mona Campus, before he left academia to succeed his good friend Willie Demas as Secretary General of CARICOM, and second,  in 1989-1993 as Pro Vice Chancellor after he assumed the Vice Chancellorship of UWI in 1988. 

In the first period, we his Deputy Directors, which included Vaughan Lewis in Barbados and Jack Harewood in St Augustine, viewed with awe, the enormity of his portfolio of activities that required intellectual leadership and profound diplomatic instincts. In addition to his responsibility for guiding the research, publication, outreach and resource mobilization of ISER, he was Special Adviser to UNECLAC, the CARICOM Trade Delegation to Europe, and to several Prime Ministers and Governments on technical economic matters, simultaneously.  He was also UWI’s  representative on the Board of the Association of Caribbean Universities and Research Institutes (UNICA), among many others.

In this context, he accurately reports in his recent book The Caribbean and the Wider World his  difference with the  prevailing view that ISER  should give priority to the intellectual/academic rather than policies issues. I vividly recall his advocacy that if ISER were to maintain its relevance, its research must focus on addressing the problems of the communities to which it related and from which it drew basic support.  This did not mean taking political sides.  His views became guiding principles for the programme of work of ISER under Vaughan Lewis who succeeded him as Director in 1975 and me, who succeeded Vaughan in 1982.

During the second period, Alister’s leadership of UWI from 1988 will no doubt go down in history as the modernization of the University system.  I was intricately involved in the first five years of his tenure as Vice Chancellor: co-opted to Mona’s rehabilitation committee in 1988 and then appointed Pro Vice Chancellor, Development and Alumni Relations 1989-93.  His was the arduous task of leading the charge of rebuilding the Mona Campus after its devastation by the category 5 - Hurricane Gilbert on September 12, 1988, just 12 days after he arrived in Jamaica to take up the appointment as Vice Chancellor.  It was a test to his fortitude and resolve that the campus was reopened on November 1, within the statutory regulations allowed for an academic year. The new Vice Chancellor marshaled his troops, and mobilized support, nationally, regionally and internationally to make this happen.  Much of this success for the hurricane relief and rebuilding efforts was due to the rigour and persuasiveness of his presentations to insurance companies, the national and regional private sector and external donors and to the high esteem in which he was held.

Having stabilized the relief efforts, the Vice Chancellor initiated a 10 year development plan (1990-2000) with a series of priorities among which, to increase the university enrollment by 50% to 18,000 students, off campus enrollments to benefit the non Campus countries and research and development in Science and Technology.  My Office of Development and Alumni Relations within the Vice Chancellory managed several projects including a grant from the Canadian International Development Agency  (CIDA) for Institutional Strengthening, and worked together with Prof. Compton Bourne, Pro Vice Chancellor, Planning and Development in designing and securing a substantial US$40M loan from the Inter American Development Bank under the leadership of the Vice Chancellor.  These resource mobilization efforts of the Vice Chancellor triggered the enhancement of Faculties and student facilities on all three campuses and strengthened governance arrangements of the university system.

 I was also particularly pleased that as the first Pro Vice Chancellor with responsibility for Alumni Relations in collaboration with the UWI Guild of Graduates whose President was Beverly Perreira, to have presided over initiating a plan for revamping the Alumni System, promoted by Vice Chancellor McIntyre as an integral component of the viability of the University.  The “Gathering of Graduates” in April 1993 which brought together approximately 800 alumni  (and approximately 1000 participants) headlined by Nobel Laureate, Dereck Walcott, remains etched in my memory as a tribute to Alister McIntyre and to its gracious patron, former Vice Chancellor, Sir Phillip Sherlock.

When Alister McIntyre retired as Vice Chancellor in 1998, he left the UWI on a trajectory of institutional viability and transformation as well as international credibility beyond all expectations.  He would be the first to let you know that this was achieved because of robust teams he built along the way, the role of the Chancellor, Sir Shridath Ramphal and the succession planning that left many of those he mentored to continue the process. 

But,  I, and most of us, who were part of his administration, could reflect on the positive responses to these efforts to which I have referred.  They were indeed largely due to the international reputation and wide ranging contacts of Alister McIntyre. He seemed to know all the influential players in the global arena. And this was no doubt as a result of the expansive reach of his distinguished academic career and profound reputation and contributions to the “Caribbean   and the Wider World “ 

Throughout his journey, the role of his wife, Marjorie who stood beside him, has been inestimable.  We commend her highly for her generosity of spirit in sharing her remarkable husband with so many of us for such an extended period.  Enjoining her to this Tribute can only minimally compensate for our inadequate appreciation. 

I struggled for a summary statement for this tribute and could find no more appropriate description of Alister McIntyre than the type of leader exalted in the writings of Charles Erwin Wilson: “a boss who makes others realize they have more ability than they think they have so they can consistently do better than they thought they could”.

For all these reasons and more, Sir Alister Mcintyre (Mack to most of us) is truly a unique Brand and a Colossus, which I am sure, will be immortalized and whose memory will remain undiminished. 

Edward Greene, Professor Emeritus 


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The  International Monetary Fund (IMF)-World Bank Spring meetings held in Washington DC  during the  week  of April 9, 2019 provided a mine field of issues and ideas in a multitude of sessions on the future of sustainable development.  The leadership of the World Bank and IMF engaged with policy makers, practitioners, scholars, entrepreneurs, innovators , and citizens from across the world in open sessions in areas such as financial access, rethinking crisis response, climate action, and austerity and the right to health and education.   The Caribbean had a small but vibrant presence led by Barbados' Prime Minister, Mia Motley and several of the Region's Ministers of Finance, representatives of CDB, CARICOM Secretariat, OECS and Caribbean Ambassadors, among others.  Among the most significant  features were the emphasis placed on the World Bank’s Human Capital Project including the establishment of a human capital index and the prominence given to the Civil Society Policy Forum.  Representation from the Caribbean at the Forum was absent or invisible.

In the coming weeks, Global Frontier will examine some of the main aspects of the Human Development Project.  However,  this week we  brings into focus,  the Civil Society Policy Forum in an effort to  stimulate a greater awareness and engagement of Civil Society in the national and regional policy dialogue.  In so doing we are also prompted to recognize that the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington DC were taking place at the same time as the 16th Global Convention of Civil Leaders in Belgrade to mark International Civil Society Week.  More specifically we  zero in on the lessons for Civil Society in the Caribbean. 

The Triggers from the IMF-World Bank Civil Society Forum 

The Civil Society Policy Forum has become an integral part of the  Annual Spring Meetings and provides an open space for dialogue among representatives  of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and other stakeholders. The major themes of the 2019 Forum with 36 sessions were Building Resilience, Challenges to the Economy, Engaged Community and Investing in Human Capital. In addition,  there were 4 interactive plenaries with IMF and World Bank officials, and  a CSO Innovative Fair that provided insights into the vital roles of civil society across all the major themes.  While the website link  provides an idea of the scope of the discussions, it is impossible to capture the vibrant spirit and impact of this 4 day event.  

https://www.worldbank.org/en/events/2019/04/12/civil-society-policy-orum?cid=EXT_WBEmailShare_EXT

The  wide range of issues provide a useful template that would contribute to the viability of CSOs in the Caribbean.    


The Evolving context  of Civil Society in the Caribbean

A long history of Civil Society activity in the Caribbean  dates back to the 18th century.  It  evolves out of a spirit of volunteerism.  During its earliest manifestation following the abolition of slavery, Free Villages were established by neighbours helping each other to erect structures, farming, and the building of roads and other civil works through voluntary service. Groups of individuals initiated investment and savings schemes outside the formal banking system in the form of su-su, box hand, and the pyramid scheme. The  emergence of trade union movements from the early 20th Century, and professional organizations like teacher’s associations injected a changing structure of civil society.  The black power movement of the 1960s and 1970s and the anti-apartheid struggle  that escalated in the 1980s and 1990s provided an international dimension.  In the contemporary period,   the  articulation for gender equality in the US has merged into the “Me too” and “Times up” movements.  Then there are the inroads of the  gay rights movement. In the Caribbean there have been the rulings  in the High Courts of Belize and Trinidad and Tobago  that to criminalize same sex relations between consenting adults in private is unconstitutional.  A similar ruling by the CCJ on "cross-dressing” in Guyana has consolidated the  stand for human rights among others.  These trends together  give validity to NGOs and CSOs that champion Justice for All. 


The CARICOM Charter of Civil Society :  Projecting "the Soul of the Region" 

The CARICOM Charter of Civil Society, for example,  provides a unique set of transformational aspirations.  Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community signed the Charter in February 1997 in St. John's, Antigua and Barbuda.  It was the first of its kind in the world.  This Charter undertook to pay due regard to one of the strongest recommendations of the West Indian Commission (WIC) as contained in its report, Time for Action. 

 "We attach much importance to this proposal for a Charter of Civil Society. CARICOM needs normative moorings; we have found widespread yearning for giving the Community a qualitative character [in which] values beyond the routine of integration arrangements themselves can be judged and to which they can be made to conform. The Charter can become the soul of the Community, which needs a soul if it is to command the loyalty of the people of CARICOM.

It is also worthy to note that the 2002 dialogue between CARICOM Heads of Government and civil society representatives in Guyana inspired the LILIENDAAL STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES ON FORWARD TOGETHER. It agreed on institutionalizing regular engagements and more constructive participation of Civil Society representatives in appropriate decisions making organs of the Community.  Although a Task Force established a comprehensive strategic framework for triennial forums,  Forward Together was never repeated, presumable because civil society leadership was perceived to have competing  political ambitions and Caribbean Civil society was not sufficiently cohesive at that time to take a stand.  CARICOM ostensibly lost its soul.  But it can be restored. 

Optimistic Trends in the reformulation of Civil Society 
 
There are some recent developments in the Latin America and Caribbean (LAC)  region that parallel those at the IMF-World Bank's Civil Society Policy Forum. The VIII Summit of Americas process,  April 12-14 ,2018 in Peru under the theme, Democratic Governance against Corruption established  codes of conduct by which to hold Governments, Managers in the Private Sector and Boards and members of Civil Society accountable to the highest standards of governance.  Similar guidelines were approved at a  sub-regional  consultation of the Caribbean Regional Civil Society in late 2018  hosted by the Caribbean Policy Development Centre (CPDC) in Jamaica, under the  theme, Caribbean Civil Society Setting the 2030 Agenda: Counter Narratives and Heterodox Thinking. More notable were the recommended solutions to the challenges faced by Caribbean Civil Society. Among them were adopting the timelines and the targets of the selected area(s) from among  the 17 SDGs; establishing strategies for the pursuit of shared responsibility with the private and public sector; participation of civil society in the monitoring of government management; involving civil society in climate resilience, and  supporting the call of  Dominica's Prime Minister, Roosevelt Skerrit for investments after the devastation of Hurricane Maria to make Dominica the first Climate resilience country in the world. 

Barbados is an outstanding example of the involvement civil society in planning for sustainable economic development. The refrain used by Prime Minister Mia Motley from her acceptance speech after her party's landslide victory at the polls, December 2017 is "putting people at the heart of the matter". This has been put into effect by  a social partnership process for economic recovery that includes  trade unions, business and civil society.  It provides a voice for civil society in formulating plans  and taking  action on policies related to the reorganization of government regulations, sharing the debt burdens, mitigating the social effects and averting increased unemployment while restoring free tertiary education as an investment in human capital. This is the second occasion that Barbados has highlighted the tripartite partnership model of shared economic planning in response to an economic crisis. 

Perhaps among the most path breaking of global developments among CSOs are the activities of    CIVICUS,  an international non- profit organization. It is a global alliance dedicated to strengthening citizen action and civil societies around the world.  It has  representatives in New York and Geneva to liaise with various UN Forums.  While registered in both New York and South Africa, it has moved its  headquarters to Johannesburg  to better represent its primary constituency in the Global South.  Its annual State of Civil Society Report monitors major global developments and key trends impacting civil society.  Its  2019 Report covers 196 countries, of which all  CARICOM member states  are included.   Its Monitoring  and Tracking Civil Society Space Watch List draws attention to  111 countries, including 6 billion people where there  are serious challenges to civic freedoms of expressions, association and peaceful assembly. www.civicus.org

Speaking at the 16th Global Convention of Civil Leaders and the 4th edition of international Civil Society week in Belgrade  on April 11, 2019,   Lysa John, Secretary General of CIVICUS placed the role of civil society in perspective. "We cannot be the generation that lost the fight to protect civic freedoms and democratic values. There is need for refreshed strategies to challenge discrimination and exclusion or new ways to demonstrate innovation and accountability as a sector "


Conclusion 

The issues promoted  at the IMF-Word Bank Civil Society Policy Forum in Washington DC and the advocacy at the Global Convention of Civic Leaders in Belgrade are significant. They bring into picture the important recommendations of the West Indian  Commission issued 27 years ago and  the need to revisit the institutionalization of the CARICOM Civil Society Engagement in keeping with the Caribbean Charter on Civil Society introduced 22 years ago and the recommendations from the CARICOM Civil Society Conference Forward Together 14 years ago.    But the discussions in Washington DC and Belgrade provide new perspectives on  inclusion, social accountability, human capital, gender equality and financial access.  So too are some of the more recent Caribbean models.  Chief among these are the Barbados Social Partnership Initiative (2018) and the   Strategic Plan for Caribbean Policy Development Centre (2018) which includes  adopting timelines and  targets of the selected area(s) from among  the 17 SDGs and establishing strategies for the pursuit of shared responsibility with the private and public sectors. 

More recent global developments have increasingly placed emphasis  on some  specific themes:   "weathering the next storm - Debt relief as a Crisis: Response for Caribbean SIDS",  "Strengthening Civil Society Response in Climate Action Initiative", "The right to health and education" , "  Youth Leading on the SDGs", "Stakeholder engagement in the face of the shrinking Civil Society Space  and Reprisals against Community Representatives", "Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity".     

The  impetus for  giving  prominence to civil society in the development equation of the Caribbean exists.  So is  the  enabling environment  for Caribbean Civil Society to claim its rightful place in the  social partnership to achieve sustainable human development.  As we reflect on the meaning of International Civil Society Week, we must aim at redeeming the soul of the Community. 

This blog is essentially a review of the book by Alister McIntyre, The Caribbean and the Wider World: Commentaries on My Life and Career (University of the West Indies, (UWI)  2016. It is dedicated to his colleague and very good Friend, the late William Demas . It portrays a man of exceptional talent; a brilliant academic, a revered administrator, highly skilled negotiator,  inspirational thinker, creative leader, massive global reputation and a magnificent human being.
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Dr Compton Bourne, the author of this review  is former President of the Caribbean Development Bank, former Pro Vice  Chancellor, UWI and Principal of UWI, St Augustine. He is currently a member of the Panel of Eminent Persons for the Anthony N. Sabga Caribbean Awards for Excellence and Professor Emeritus, UWI. ​

Global Frontier this week highlights a Share Fair on Men’s Health, an initiative by the Caribbean Community's Pan Caribbean Partnerships Against HIV/AIDS (PANCAP) held on March 14, 2019 in Trinidad and Tobago.  It is an illustration of a prototype through an interactive methodology and active participation of practitioners. It  addresses the critical issues of men’s health with a focus on accelerating prevention to achieve the UNAIDS’ 90-90-90 Targets, a scientific approach to ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030.  The main features are: How to get 90% of men with HIV knowing their status? How to get 90% of those knowing their status on treatment?  How to get 90% of those on treatment with viral loads in the blood low enough as not to transmit HIV. 
 
The Share Fair​, ​a component of The PANCAP Knowledge for Health Project​, is ​funded by PEPFAR-USAID and implemented by the Center for Communication Programs, John Hopkins University.  It included a ‘knowledge cafe’  highlighting successful men’s health programmes.  In so doing, it provided a space for National AIDS Programme  managers, health professionals and representatives of  Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in the Caribbean,  to showcase best practices, discuss critical challenges, and provide recommendations for increasing access to services for men, including men who have sex with men and other key populations in achieving 90-90-90.  
 
The Share Fair was a response to  the UNAIDS Global AIDS Update 2018 showing  that gay men and other men who have sex with men accounted for nearly a quarter of new infections in 2017.  The report also highlighted that efforts to reach men and boys, and particularly gay men and other men who have sex with men, are constrained by health services insufficiently tailored to their needs and limited community-based services.
Dr Shanti Singh-Anthony, Coordinator of the PANCAP Knowledge for Health Project hailed the activity as a success. She said it highlighted “ innovations from country programmes that have achieved positive results in relation to increasing access to prevention, treatment, care and support services for men and boys. Implementers of programmes who are challenged to reach men with health services can use the innovative practices to increase men’s access to quality health services.” 
 
​The link to the event  taken from the  PANCAP.org website​​ is: https://spark.adobe.com/page/iuc4XSGTBTrG1/
 
See the National AIDS Programme coordinators, health professionals and representatives of civil society in the Caribbean at work.  Engage in a dialogue with PANCAP’s Knowledge for Health Programme. Share your experiences. Make a difference to the challenge of ending the AIDS epidemic. 

​Eddie Greene

​Fifty years ago, political scientist Charles W. Anderson referred to Latin America as “a living museum.” By this he meant the co-existence of regimes that seemed to belong to very different eras, if not centuries: traditional military dictatorships like Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay, as well as
bureaucratic-authoritarian ones like Argentina and Brazil; old-fashioned, patrimonial autocracies, like Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua and François Duvalier’s Haiti and established multiparty democracies like Chile, Costa Rica and Uruguay; two-party systems like Colombia and Venezuela, and one-party- dominant ones, like Mexico’s. 
 
Today’s Latin America is more along the lines of “a living theater.” Comedy (closer often to farce), tragedy and drama are all in full display in presidential palaces throughout the region, with comic opera and operetta making occasional appearances on the playbill. Events in late February in Cúcuta, a Colombian town on the Venezuelan border, are Exhibit A of this new theatrical performative tendency. 
 
Orchestrated by Colombian President Iván Duque, who played the leading role, and with supporting actors like presidents Sebastián Piñera of Chile and Mario Abdo Benítez of Paraguay, it was portrayed as a grand operation to restore democracy in Venezuela. This veritable “diplomatic encirclement” was to bring to an end the Maduro regime, or so the script went. Dozens of trucks with humanitarian aid were poised to cross the bridge from Colombia to Venezuela over the Táchira river. As if on cue, the Venezuelan Armed Forces were then supposed to open the border, defect from the government and allow the self-proclaimed acting president of Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, to take over from President Nicolás Maduro. Although banned from leaving the country, the 35-year old, photogenic Guaidó slipped into Cúcuta, and was the undisputed star of the show. So much so, that Piñera and Benítez found themselves scrambling through Guaidó’s bodyguard-line to get their photo-ops next to the beaming young engineer. 
 
Led by billionaire-cum-celebrity Richard Branson, a rock concert (“Venezuela Live Aid”) to raise $100 million for the whole endeavor was held in situ and included attractions such as Colombian cumbia singer Carlos Vives. The high note of the day was provided by Spanish singer Miguel Bosé (who sang for Pinochet in the 1980s in Viña del Mar), when he elegantly asked former president of Chile and now UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle

Bachelet, “to move her butt and get herself to Venezuela” (both the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross had refused to be part of the show—including the concert and the shipment of humanitarian aid).
 
In the end, no truck crossed the San Martín bridge, a ship loaded with humanitarian aid sent from Puerto Rico to Venezuela returned with its full cargo to the island, and Maduro strengthened his grip on the country. 
 
Rarely has the region seen such an undiluted diplomatic fiasco. But then, perhaps that was the point. Stagecraft has replaced statecraft. 
 
Not to be outdone, a few days later in Paraguay, Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, a former Army captain, paid homage to the man who ruled that country with an iron fist for 35 years, dictator Alfredo Stroessner, in the presence of his counterpart, Abdo Benítez, the son of Stroessner’s private
secretary. Yet, lest he be accused of showing too much affinity for the old right, Bolsonaro soon pulled other rabbits from his hat. An avid Twitter user, during Brazil’s Carnival Bolsonaro outdid himself by tweeting the picture of a naked man touching himself as another man urinated on him. Later the president posted another, asking, “What are golden showers?” Displaying his common touch and appealing to his base, while attending the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Brazilian president had lunch by himself in a supermarket cafeteria, rather than to do so with other participating heads of state in posh hotel suites. He has though, agreed to visit the White House on March 19, when presumably he won’t eat at the food court in Pentagon City. 
 
Coups, cocaine, corruption, and Cúcuta
 
In Honduras, the farce has gone into overdrive. In 2009, the country experienced one of the last old-fashioned military coups d’etats, which included the signature feature of detaining the incumbent president at the crack of dawn, and hoisting him, still in his pajamas, into a plane and out of the
country. The ostensible reason for the coup, as those who led it said themselves, was the government’s initiative for a new constitution, which might have allowed the possibility of presidential re-election, forbidden in the current charter. This is such a no-no that a coup was mandatory. Yet, the current president, Juan Orlando Hernández, a leading supporter of the coup,
and elected in 2013, got the Supreme Court to waive that constitutional ban to allow his re-election in 2017, in what was declared by independent observers and The Economist a fraudulent vote. 
 
After stealing the election, the United States recognized him as the president and the region has hailed him as one of the Americas paramount democratic leaders. President Hernández’ younger brother, Juan Antonio (“Tony”) was arrested last November in Miami for long-term drug-trafficking to the United States on behalf of the Sinaloa cartel. His closeness to narcotics traffickers was such that he even allegedly had a type of cocaine named after him. Tony is now behind bars. 
 
Yet, even countries that have done well these years find it hard not to be pulled to the stage. Peru has had among the best economic performances of any nation in the hemisphere this century, growing at an annual average of 6.1 per cent from 2002 to 2013. Yet, every single elected president in this period, Alberto Fujimori, Alan García, Alejandro Toledo, and Ollanta Humala—barring the most recent—is either in prison or has an arrest warrant over their head, a world record that led the New York Times famously to ask, “Does Peru need a special prison just for former presidents?” And even the most recent, Pedro Pablo Kuzcinsky, a banker-turned politician, elected president in 2016 under an anti-corruption platform, was forced to resign in 2018 when it turned out he had received payments from Odebrecht, the Brazilian construction company, while holding public office. 
 
Across the Andes, in Argentina, things are not much better. Once among the top five richest countries in the world, and blessed with the best agricultural land anywhere (the pampa húmeda), and untold (though mostly under-exploited) mineral wealth, Argentina regressed from development to underdevelopment, and fluctuates from boom to bust with bipolar frequency. After its most recent international default (in 2000-2001), and a roller coaster ride under the Kirchners (Néstor Kirchner, 2003-2007, and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, 2007-2015), Argentines and the international community held out hopes for conservative Mauricio Macri, a millionaire businessman who, it was said, would balance the books and straighten out Argentina’s foreign debts. A businessman would clean up the mess left by the peronista politicians, or so the fairy tale went. Yet, a little over three years into Macri’s term, Argentina is drowning in red ink, the peso has hit rock bottom—requiring the International Monetary Fund to shore up the country’s Central Bank reserves—and talk of yet another default has already started. 
 
Venezuela, the country with the biggest oil reserves in the world, and once so rich that Venezuelans in Miami were known as “dame dos” (“give me two”, as whenever they wanted to buy something, they bought not one, but two items ) now undergoes periodic blackouts, and is unable to feed its people, let alone provide basic services. Its president, Nicolás Maduro has found it hard to fill the shoes of his once boss, Hugo Chávez, whose “21st century socialism” model is now in tatters. 
 
Much is made of Venezuela’s humanitarian crisis, and rightly so. Yet, in some ways Haiti’s humanitarian crisis is a lot worse, although nobody pays much attention to it. The country never recovered from the January 2010 earthquake that devastated it. Despite the billions of dollars committed by the international community for reconstruction, nearly ten years later, refugee camps still abound, and even the white stucco, birthday-cake-like presidential palace is still in ruins. Imposed from abroad, hapless Michel Martelly, a former crooner who had never held public office nor run anything before becoming president (2011-2016), limped through as the leader of the hemisphere’s poorest nation. His handpicked successor, Jovenel Moise (2017-present) has not fared much better. A businessman, accused of pocketing some of the proceeds from the discounted oil provided by Venezuela to Haiti under the Petrocaribe scheme, Moise has faced weeks of popular protests. The opposition managed to shut down the country for a week in February, and U.S. and Canadian travel advisories have decimated the tourist industry. Haitians have emigrated to countries as far away as Chile, which 100,000 of them now call home. 
 
As if the large number of existing regional organizations were not enough, a new one has been announced with great fanfare. It carries the imaginative name of PROSUR, taking a leaf from the export-promotion agencies (ProChile, ProColombia, ProMexico) that populate foreign ministries. The lead has been taken by a number of countries (Chile, Colombia, Peru, Argentina) that left another, previous organization, UNASUR, alleging it was “too ideological”—which this one presumably isn’t, even though it is launched by another side of the ideological aisle. 
 
Cúcuta was a trial run for what we can expect from PROSUR. The show goes on. 

Jorge Heine is a public policy fellow at The Wilson Center in Washington DC. He is former Chilean Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China; former Chilean Cabinet Minister and Ambassador; former CIGI Professor of Global Governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs; and Professor of Political Science at Wilfrid Laurier University  His latest book (with Brigitte Weiffen) is 21st Century Democracy Promotion in the Americas: Standing Up for the Polity (Routledge, 2015).