The ‘Kingstown Declaration‘, a document with nearly 100 paragraphs, was adopted by the 33-member bloc and marked the conclusion of the 8th summit of CELAC in St Vincent (SVG) on Friday evening.
The document contains the necessary pathway for CELAC going forward and contains the following;
Issues of peace, South-South cooperation, reparations, climate change, crime and security, poverty alleviation, food security, migration, and the Cuban blockade, among others.
On the matter of the Israel-Gaza conflict, member states could not find unanimity; 25 out of 33 countries agreed with the statement from the outgoing president of CELAC, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves.
Gonsalves described the final document as ‘a condition of mutual dissatisfaction’.
On Friday, St Vincent Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves congratulated all personnel at the CELAC office in SVG and public servants who made the summit a success. He also expressed thanks to all the member countries of CELAC who sent delegations to SVG ahead of the summit to help with preparations.
The summit was held at the Sandals Resort in Buccament, St Vincent.
This article will be updated.
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- Remarks By Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves
Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves on Friday emphasised the need for a permanent CELAC secretariat to effectively handle its significant responsibilities in the current complex global landscape, highlighting the principle that form should align with function, as seen in biology.
“There are functions to be performed by CELAC that cannot adequately be performed with the current structure. I am calling for us to give serious and urgent consideration to a permanent and nimble secretariat for CELAC to carry out his requisite functions,” Gonsalves stated.
“Our quest for sustainable development and inclusive societies and our geographical closeness have all conspired to predispose us towards creating CELAC. The requisite glue of solidarity, purpose, and action in our contemporary times in pursuit of peace, justice, prosperity, and security for all. Based on the popular will that induced us to establish this celebrated regional integration mechanism, CELAC is a community of sovereign states.”
Gonsalves said CELAC has a roadmap for confronting meaningfully the challenges and encumbrances, burdens, weaknesses, and limitations, and from our inherited and existing conditions, the bloc has set forth accordingly a package of policies and programmes to advance our people’s interests.
“Our draft Declaration of Kingstown, of nearly 100 paragraphs, which I expect to be adopted unanimously today, contains the necessary and desirable pathway in the 12 headings.”
Gonsalves highlighted that significant projects were carried out during his tenure as president of CELAC.
“The elaboration of the health sufficiency plan, the proposal for the establishment of the Latin American and Caribbean centre for the development of science, the platform for food security, the push for enhanced air and sea transport, technology, and innovation, the joint promotion of an environment for open, secure, stable, accessible, and peaceful information and communications technologies,” Gonsalves said.
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- Remarks By President Gustavo Petro of Colombia
On Friday, March 1, President Gustavo Petro addressed the opening of the VIII CELAC Summit in St Vincent and the Grenadines.
“In the decades-long effort to pacify the country, we have learned things and gained a certain moral authority to speak about peace in the world. Colombia has raised the word ‘peace’ as a necessity for humanity”.
“Why is violence and war increasing in the world? I dare to suggest that it has to do with the main problem facing humanity, the climate crisis produced by capitalism”, Petro Said.
“We have a million dead; we are the most violent region in the world, even more so than the regions where direct war and even genocide are taking place”.
Colombia solidifies its international leadership by joining one of the most important executive bodies of this coordination and integration mechanism: the Troika, along with Honduras and the host country.
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- UN Secretary-General’s remarks at (CELAC) summit SVG
Excellencies,
Just a few years ago, the people of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines were the victims of the devastating volcanic eruption of La Soufrière. This country faced profound disruptions – but the world also saw your resilience and solidarity.
We saw neighbours helping neighbours – and the region coming together for support. We need that spirit more than ever, today and everywhere. As you come together to help foster solutions – for the region and for the world – I would like to highlight four areas in particular.
First, we need solidarity for peace and security.
Latin America and the Caribbean have shown how uniting for peace is possible – and makes a difference. We have just witnessed it today. The peace process in Colombia has made significant strides, with invaluable contributions from CELAC countries.
The Joint declaration for dialogue and peace between Guyana and Venezuela, adopted here in Argyle last December, is another example of the region’s commitment to seek peaceful solutions, and I commend your efforts.
Yet, both cases also underscore that implementation requires sustained efforts. And we also know that peace is far more than the absence of armed conflict. Today, violent and organized crime continue to plague many countries.
Arms trafficking has become the most important security threat to the region. It will not be possible to fight it effectively without much stronger international cooperation – from the source to the streets.
Ecuador is the most recent example of how the security situation can quickly deteriorate and spiral into violence. I welcome the new security partnership launched in January by the Andean Community.
In Guatemala, the new government offers a chance to advance democratic development, the rule of law and other key aspects of the peace agenda.
Excellences,
In Haiti, an already dire situation is sadly getting worse by the day. Gangs are holding the country hostage and using sexual violence as a weapon. Meanwhile, the UN Humanitarian Response Plan for Haiti needs solid financial support.
Last week in Rio de Janeiro, several countries – including CELAC members – made additional pledges to the Multinational Security Support mission.
I welcome these efforts, but much more must be done to secure the deployment of this mission without further delay, and a political solution that could resolve the country’s fundamental problems.
Excellencies,
Second, we need solidarity for sustainable development. The Sustainable Development Goals are slipping away. Millions of people in the region are facing poverty and hunger. I welcome your recent Plan for Food Security and Nutrition and the Eradication of Hunger by 2030.
But that requires funding – and many countries are already drowning in debt. The global financial system is failing to provide affordable long-term finance to countries in need and to offer a global financial safety net.
Small Island Developing States have been particularly hit. Middle-income countries are also not getting the help they need. Despite their vulnerabilities, they are not receiving the benefits of critical debt relief and concessional funding.
This must change. That shows the importance of the adoption of the vulnerability index. Last September, world leaders endorsed our proposed SDG Stimulus of US $500 billion per year in affordable, long-term finance for developing countries.
The Stimulus also calls for a debt lifeline to give countries breathing room and the expansion of contingency financing for countries in need. Unfortunately, the resistance has been severe, and so it is important that the Summit of the Future becomes a vital opportunity to make progress in reforming a global financial architecture that is unfair, outdated and ineffective.
I look forward to your active engagement for change for a new Bretton Woods moment, and I count on Brazil’s leadership as Chair of the G20.
Third, we need solidarity for social cohesion. Around the world, authoritarianism and extremism are growing. Democracy and civic space are eroding. Disinformation and hate speech are supercharged by new technologies and growing inequalities are feeding people’s fears.
Irregular migration has become a political tool to sow division and it is extremely important to address all the root causes that has transformed this into a major problem for this continent.
I am calling for a renewed social contract, based on trust, justice and inclusion and anchored in human rights – in all its dimensions.
Leaders have a responsibility:
To invest in social cohesion.
To end violence and discrimination.
To uphold the rights of Afro-descendent and Indigenous Peoples – and ensure that every community feels represented and included.
To guarantee women’s full participation and leadership.
And to amplify young voices.
Fourth and finally, we need solidarity to address the climate emergency – which is threatening the very existence of small island developing states. Extreme events are hitting with increasing ferocity.
All countries must commit to new economy-wide nationally determined contributions by 2025 that align with limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
These plans should serve as both transition and investment plans. G20 countries – responsible for 80 per cent of global emissions – have a special responsibility to lead these efforts.
And they must lead a just global phase-out of fossil fuel and accelerate a just and equitable transition to renewables. I know many of your countries have pioneered decentralized renewable energy.
But you need support. We need developed countries to deliver climate justice by:
Ensuring significant and meaningful funding for the Loss and Damage Fund, which has been created but is not sufficiently funded;
Clarifying delivery of the $100 billion commitment;
And doubling adaptation finance to at least $40 billion a year by 2025, which barely covers a portion of the needs.
It is also high time for the recapitalization of Multilateral Development Banks and a change in their business model, so that they can scale up mitigation and adaptation investments in your countries and mobilize financing much more massively as well as private investments.
I commend CELAC for creating a Climate Adaptation and Comprehensive Response to Natural Disasters Fund – with the support of the United Nations and regional development banks.
And I welcome Brazil’s commitment to bring climate and finance discussions together as G20 President.
The upcoming 4th International Conference on Small Island Developing States in Antigua and Barbuda in May, is also another important opportunity.
We know that a low-carbon future requires far more critical minerals but we must make sure the production and trade of those minerals are just, sustainable and provide added value and productive jobs in the countries supplying these raw materials.
I am creating a new UN panel to help ensure just that.
And finally, as we prepare for COP16 on Biodiversity in Colombia in December, we have a chance to strengthen biodiversity conservation measures in the region, recognizing the unique ecosystems and natural heritage of this beautiful region.
I am encouraged by recent regional initiatives such as the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization.
Excellencies, dear friends,
Solidarity and cooperation are at the heart of your region’s vibrant history – and of the mission of CELAC.
From your seats in the Security Council to the Presidencies of the General Assembly, ECOSOC and the G20, I urge you to be bold – for peace, prosperity and planet.
You can count on my full support.
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- Honduras assumes CELAC Presidency, pledges commitment to regional peace
The 8th CELAC summit is presently underway in St Vincent, with leaders from member countries participating.
Honduras becomes CELAC pro tempore president. President of the Central American Integration System Xiomara Castro of Honduras said she was honoured to lead CELAC until 2025.
“As a proud representative of the Honduran resistance, I send a strong, giant, and brave embrace to the noble people of the Latin American and Caribbean Great Homeland,” she added, reiterating “unwavering commitment” to calm.
Castro noted that the 10th anniversary of the designation of LATAM as a “peace zone,” ratified during the second CELAC summit in Havana, is in 2024.
“Despite challenges, we have maintained our war-free zone tradition. Today, we must reiterate that Latin America and Caribbean will never attack a fraternal nation.”
“The problems and differences among this bloc’s countries must be resolved among ourselves without external interference or pressure, using dialogue as a tool, and always thinking about regional well-being and the self-determination of peoples,” Castro said.
I defend peace. She concluded that Latin America must speak up, quoting Honduran environmentalist Berta Caceres, who advised us to “exercise humanity because there is no time left.”
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The 8th CELAC Summit is taking place in Buccament, St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG), bringing together Latin and Caribbean presidents and top diplomats from all around the world.
St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) will hand over the Pro Tempore Presidency to Honduras today.
The world’s top diplomat, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, will speak at the 8th Summit, focusing on climate change and global financial reform.
The summit is being attended by about 33 heads of state and government, as well as diplomats from the United States, Europe, India, Africa, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
CELAC consists of 33 countries and has a population of over 650 million people.
