17 January 2011: The 27th Meeting of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Council was held on 17 January 2011, at CARICOM headquarters in Georgetown, Guyana.

At the opening, Amb. Lolita Applewhaite, CARICOM Acting Secretary-General, urged the Council of Ministers to seek to “find solutions as an integrated whole” to the challenges faced by the region, pointing to the volatility of tourism and the “troubling inability” of the international community to fulfil their financial pledges to rebuild Haiti.

In his remarks, Chair of the Community Council Senator Denneth Modeste, Minister of State of Grenada, proposed consolidating and demonstrating progress in the area of Information and Communication Technologies for Development, with a view to its inclusion in a CARICOM aid-for-trade project to be presented to international development partners.

The Council also discussed the work programme and budget of the CARICOM Secretariat and the Caribbean Knowledge and Learning Network Agency, an update on the preparation of a strategic plan for regional development, and the schedule of other major meetings within the Community in the first quarter of 2011, including the preparations for the 22nd Intersessional Meeting of the Conference of CARICOM Heads of Government, to be held in Grenada in February 2011. The Council also engaged in a follow-up discussion to the Special Meeting of the Conference on Governance, which was held in Grenada in August 2010. [CARICOM Press Release 1] [CARICOM Press Release 2] [Applewhaite’s remarks] [Modeste’s remarks]