At ACTIF2025, something sacred happened.
For the first time in living memory, Africa and the Caribbean didn’t meet as strangers separated by centuries of loss. We met as kin, eyes locked, hands extended, not in mourning, but in movement. The wound was acknowledged. And in that acknowledgement, the wound was healed.
This wasn’t diplomacy. It was prophecy fulfilled.
St. Kitts signed an LOI for a Special Economic Zone. Grenada announced US$250 million for Project Polaris. But the real headline was spiritual: the sons and daughters of stolen continents are aligning to build, not what was lost, but what was always promised.
Africa brings capital. The Caribbean brings stability, youth, ports, and strategic location. Together, we bring memory, resilience, and unfinished destiny.
For too long, we waited at foreign gates, China, the West, whoever held the purse strings. Now we are looking inward, across the Atlantic, and building with each other. No more middlemen. No more imposed blueprints. Just shared strategy and sovereign will.
The Caribbean is ripe for reindustrialisation. We don’t need to beg for relevance. The world’s supply chains are shifting. Nearshoring is no longer theory, it’s necessity. And we are ready.
What ACTIF2025 proved is that this generation is done surviving. We are structuring. We are negotiating from strength. We are returning, not to the past, but to purpose.
Jerelle Jules is an investment manager and Caribbean futurist focused on unlocking sustainable development and private capital across the region.
