In the very year that the United Nations launched the Decade for Action to ignite a more purposeful undertaking on the part of the international community towards advancing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the world has confronted unprecedented challenge in the spectre of COVID-19. The multi-dimensioned impact of this pandemic has served to dramatize the true scale of the vulnerability of the small, heavily indebted, undiversified economies of the Caribbean, and has forced creative exploration of every opportunity within the reach of our member States to secure urgent relief.

The 2020 meetings of the Caribbean Development Roundtable and the Caribbean Development and Cooperation Committee will offer space for taking stock of the progress so far made in persuading the international community to extend the financial support needed, middle income status notwithstanding, and to dialogue on those strategies that will take you from vulnerability to resilient development; from economic peril to recovery and dynamic growth. It is an opportunity to consider how together we strengthen partnership for action that is responsive to the unique vulnerabilities of the Caribbean, and that assures tangible progress through the application of innovative problem-solving in these precarious times.

For access to a Virtual Library with a range of useful reading materials related to this meeting click here.

A Live Broadcast of the event can be viewed here.

CDCC objectives

The objectives of CDCC are:

• To promote and strengthen economic and social cooperation and integration among the countries of the Caribbean and with Latin America
• To promote the sharing of information and experiences among its membership
• To promote common positions and strategies on economic and social issues among Caribbean nations, and on their relations with third countries, and to present those positions to international forums and agencies

CDCC members

The member countries of CDCC are: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago.

The associate members of CDCC are: Anguilla, Aruba, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Montserrat, Puerto Rico, Turks and Caicos Islands, and United States Virgin Islands.

CDCC structure

CDCC comprises the following elements:

• The session of ministers
• The Monitoring Committee
• Such other subsidiary organs as may be established by the Session of Ministers.

Regular sessions of ministers are held every two years. The sessions are convened on dates that facilitate the transmission of relevant reports and decisions to the biennial sessions of ECLAC. The regular meetings of the Monitoring Committee are held every two years, in the years when there is no CDCC session of ministers.

CDCC cooperates with other intergovernmental bodies in the Caribbean, including the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) and the Association of Caribbean States (ACS).

PROVISIONAL AGENDA

A Live Broadcast of the event can be viewed here.

1. Opening of the session
2. The Caribbean Outlook 2020: Exploring a creative and durable response to the COVID-19 challenge
3. Promoting sustained Caribbean growth and development: regionalism and multilateralism revisited
4. Matters relating to the programme of work
5. Thirty-Eighth Session of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean
6. Consideration and adoption of resolutions
7. Date and venue of the twentieth meeting of the Monitoring Committee of the CDCC
8. Closure of the session