Senator the Honourable Kamina Johnson Smith, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, is underscoring CARICOM’s commitment to strategic engagement with Japan and other bilateral partners, with a view to increasing access to concessional financing to the region’s vulnerable and highly-indebted countries. Minister Johnson Smith noted that increased access is “critical to ensuring a sustained and equitable regional response to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Minister Johnson Smith was participating in the 7th CARICOM-Japan Ministerial Meeting, which was convened virtually on Tuesday, 20th July 2021. The meeting was co-chaired by the CARICOM Chair of COFCOR and H.E. Toshimitsu Motegi, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan, who participated from the Headquarters of Jamaica’s Foreign Ministry in Kingston. Ministers engaged on several issues of mutual interest, including a review of Japan-CARICOM Relations; recovery from the covid-19 pandemic; climate change and disaster risk reduction; and UN Security Council reform
Minister Johnson Smith recommended the parties take certain decisive action within the CARICOM-Japan Strategic Partnership including, “building on the progress being made under the Financing for Development in the Era of COVID-19 and Beyond Initiative (FfD), co-chaired by the UN Secretary General and the Prime Ministers of Canada and Jamaica.”
Johnson Smith also stated that, “international development partners must exercise greater flexibility in the redistribution of development funding to allow Caribbean countries more room to operate in the extremely limited fiscal space.” The Minister also proposed that Japan improves the response capacity of indigenous development lending institutions, such as the Caribbean Development Bank. Minister Johnson Smith also reiterated Jamaica’s call for fair and equitable access to safe and affordable vaccines for all countries.
Noting that Japan is well-placed to amplify the concerns of the region in important fora like the G7 and G20, Johnson Smith noted that CARICOM is “counting on the highest political support from Japan to advance the work being undertaken under the various work streams of the Financing for Development Initiative (FfD), to help SIDS, in particular, build back better.”
The CARICOM-Japan Meeting was part of the Official Working Visit of Minister Motegi, which was the first visit by a Japanese Foreign Minister to Jamaica.
