CARICOM supports India’s candidature for UNSC term 2028-29

• Minister of External Affairs S, Jaishankar joined his counterparts from the Caribbean for the India-CARICOM Foreign Ministers’ Meeting on the margins of the high-level UN General Assembly session on September 23.

• The meeting was a follow up to the second India-CARICOM Summit chaired by Prime Minister  Narendra Modi and the leaders of CARICOM countries in Guyana in November 2024.

• During the meeting, the group conveyed the decision to support India’s candidature for UNSC term 2028-29.

• India last sat at the UNSC for the 2021-22 term, its eighth time in the UN Security Council after stints in 1950-1951, 1967-1968, 1972-1973, 1977-1978, 1984-1985, 1991-1992, 2011-2012.

Caribbean Community (CARICOM)

• In 1972, Commonwealth Caribbean leaders at the 7th Heads of Government Conference decided to transform the Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA) into a Common Market and establish the Caribbean Community, of which the Common Market would be an integral part.

• On July 4, 1973, they signed the Treaty of Chaguaramas in Trinidad & Tobago establishing the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

• CARICOM comprises 15 Member States and eight Associate Members, mostly island states in the Caribbean.

• While these states are all relatively small, both in terms of population and size, there is also  great diversity with regards to geography and population as well as  the levels of economic and social development.

• It is home to approximately 16 million citizens, and from the main ethnic groups of Indigenous Peoples, Africans, Indians, Europeans, Chinese, Portuguese and Javanese. 

• Stretching from The Bahamas in the north to Suriname and Guyana in South America, CARICOM comprises states that are considered developing countries, and except for Belize, in Central America and Guyana and Suriname in South America, all members and associate members are island states.

Members of CARICOM

CARICOM has 15 members:

Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad & Tobago. 

• Of the 15, all except Montserrat are nation States. Montserrat is a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean.

• Stretching from the Bahamas in the north to Suriname and Guyana in South America, CARICOM comprises states that are considered developing countries.

• Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Curacao, French Guiana, Martinique and Turks & Caicos Islands are Associate Members of the Community. 

• While these states are all relatively small, both in terms of population and size, there is also great diversity with regards to geography and population as well as the levels of economic and social development.

• CARICOM is the oldest existing integration movement in the developing world. 

• The chairmanship of the Community is rotated every six months among the member countries’ Heads.

• The CARICOM Secretariat in Georgetown, Guyana is the principal administrative organ of the Community.

The objectives of the Community are: 

• To improve standards of living and work.

• Full employment of labour and other factors of production.

• Accelerated, coordinated and sustained economic development and convergence.

• Expansion of trade and economic relations with third States.

• Enhanced levels of international competitiveness.

• Organisation for increased production and productivity.

• Achievement of a greater measure of economic leverage.

• Enhanced coordination of Member States’ foreign and foreign economic policies and enhanced functional cooperation.