By the Caribbean Journal staff

Acting CARICOM Secretary-General Ambassador Lolita Applewhaite, who will soon be replaced by new permanent Secretary-General Irwin LaRocque, called for donors to help the region’s private sector in a speech at the opening of the Second Forum on Donor Co-ordination and Aid Effectiveness in Turkeyen, Guyana.

Applewhaite said the CARICOM Heads of Government had emphasized the private sector’s crucial role in development at their meeting at the beginning of this month.

“It would certainly not be beyond the remit of this forum to initiate discussion on how it may be possible to leverage traditional assistance to benefit the development of the regional private sector, including the building of competitiveness,” she said.

She called the private sector an integral part of a partnership comprising CARICOM’s member states, IDPs and the Secretariat.

“Let us openly examine risks as they occur and seek solutions together so that there is joint ownership of the projects and programmes,” she said. “Our collaboration should occur from conceptualisation to implementation.”