Caribbean Community (CARICOM) nations and colonial territories within continue to exist on the margins of the global landscape, still very-largely ignored by the world’s major nations, international institutions and media houses.
But that’s quickly changing, even though just-as unrecognized by those who continue to blind themselves to the fate of developing nations and small island states.
Just as the BRICS nations are now commanding more international attention, the ground is also changing for Caribbean nations as CARICOM governments step-up their campaigns to attract world recognition that their region exists – and not as an adjunct to its Latin American neighbours, but as real partners, growing equally-aware of the need for the Global South to work more and better, to address common problems together.
Indeed, global alignments and realignments are taking place more quickly today, as the last year has seen BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) walk and talk closer and louder after Venezuela.
The European Union (EU) and Canada are also closing ranks as US President Donald Trump tightens tariff and other screws on allies over Iran and Ukraine.
Last June, Africa and the Caribbean started reversing Columbus’ 534-year-old European ‘Middle Passage’ with the African Union (AU) and CARICOM joining to promote Reparations.
Similarly, the vast majority of member-states of the United Nations (UN) overwhelmingly supported resolutions this year declaring Trans-Atlantic Chattel Slavery as ‘The Gravest Crime Against Humanity’.
They also approved global adoption of a new world map that reverses the blinding effects of 400+ years of an Atlas that offered minimized images of many nations – especially of the African continent that was significantly dwarfed in relation to Europe, China, Russia and Japan, all of which can fit within its true space.
All that also comes after the vast majority of the world’s nations have – for the past three decades – consistently supported annual UN resolutions condemning the multiplicity of US sanctions, embargos and blockades that have targeted and punished Cuba’s 11 million people since 1962.
And more-than-half of UN member-states walked out on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on September 24, when he took the podium in New York, demonstrating their opposition to his nation’s genocidal policies against neighbouring states (especially Lebanon).
That major walkout on Netanyahu was also in support of Palestinians and firm opposition to Israel’s historical opposition to a two-state solution, while reducing Gaza to rubble and forcibly occupying the West Bank.
All that’s taking place as the world has embraced CARICOM’s admirable quest for Reparations from Europe for Slavery and Native Genocide.
Not only has the AU adopted CARICOM’s original 10-Point Plan (TPP) for Reparatory Justice, but most other nations that have become recent victims of external aggression are also now demanding ‘Reparations’ by name – including Iran’s demands on the USA and Israel and Yemen’s Ansarullah government’s demands on Saudi Arabia.
Like the rest of the Global South and other Small Island Developing States (SIDS), CARICOM nations and their Latin American neighbours are increasingly paying more through Loss and Damage from the effects of accelerated Climate Change, which has this year worsened the records of 2024 and 2025.
This year has already seen increased heat waves and forest fires, earthquakes, floods and other natural and human-induced disasters, as with overheating of Europe, Asia and North America, unprecedented flooding from melting of Himalayan ice caps in Nepal, worsening monsoon effects in the Indian sub-continent, increased earthquakes along the Pacific Rim of Fire that stretches from Venezuela and Colombia to Taiwan – all worsened by the ongoing worst El Nino phenomenon ever.
Caribbean nations are also overheating like-never-before, while Sahara Dust and the Sargassum crisis combine to pose greater challenges for governments and people.
But none of the region’s new threats are being noted or highlighted by the international press.
With international financial agencies established after World War II unable in the third decade of the 21st century to address the economic and social problems confronting SIDS globally, Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley and current CARICOM Chairman Saint Lucia’s Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre have been loudly supporting calls for Africa to have a seat on the UN Security Council.
They’re also arguing for SIDS to have equal unrestrained access to international fora, where the world’s worsening problems continue to be addressed as if they only affect the Global North.
Efforts by CARICOM to seek urgently-needed alternative funding after drastic aid cuts by traditional donors are coming under increasing combined attack by both the European Union (EU) and the USA.
Both are targeting the region’s economic citizenship programs while shifting immigration policy goalposts to shut-out access by Haitians and other Caribbean and African citizens, while only accepting South Africans claiming (without evidence) to be victims of ‘white genocide’.
But Caribbean voices at the 81st UN General Assembly in New York, thus far, have echoed those of other developing nations of the Global South, not only for UN reform, but as well for nations of the Global North to start delivering on longstanding promises — ranging from Climate Finance to long-overdue Reparations and other forms of compensation for historical and contemporary injustices that have contributed to the socio-economic challenges hindering developing nations’ ability to survive.
CARICOM is grappling with the global energy and food price crises like everywhere else, forcing nations like Saint Lucia to absorb increases in fuel and cooking gas prices to keep consumer prices at less than 50% cost to consumers, while rising food import costs have forced the region to extend its plan to reduce food imports by 25% from 2025 to 2030.
However, while Caribbean nations are feeling the squeezes like all others, they’re doing more now than ever to address today’s challenges in ways that spell well for deepening regional integration and cooperation in ways that will ensure their either swim or sink together.
In this age of increasing enlightenment, CARICOM can only stay the course to stay above water.