By the Caribbean Journal staff

CARICOM Chairman Dr Denzil Douglas, the Prime Minister of St Kitts and Nevis, has charged incoming Secretary-General Irwin LaRocque to devise creative ways to surmount the region’s “crippling” challenges.

“The large prints in the sands of time were left by the longest serving of them all, your predecessor, Dr Edwin Carrington, who mounted the helm in 1992 to weather the storm of the post-Cold War era and, undoubtedly, braced himself to face the fierce winds of globalization.”

Douglas told LaRocque CARICOM must continue to be respected for the contribution that it could make on the global front on the issues such as climate change, renewable energy, security, and financial services.

“With your leadership, the Secretariat must chart the way forward to redefine the sphere of our foreign policy cooperation so as to accentuate our own relevance as a grouping which has a voice in international discourse,” he said. “CARICOM as an institution has to draw from its own internal strengths, successes and achievements to shake off the ambers of its failures and challenges and soar to new heights.”