Since Monday, we've been providing you with extensive coverage of CARICOM Heads of Government meeting, which was held on the Placencia Peninsula. Prime Minister Dean Barrow Chaired this meeting, and right now, if they've not left as yet, his fellow Prime Ministers are making plans to leave Belize and return home.
But, that's after a whirlwind of activity in this 27 Inter-Sessional Meeting, and Daniel Ortiz takes a look back from the time they landed until yesterday, to when the very busy meeting ended:
Daniel Ortiz reporting
These 15 Government Leaders, each a head of a CARICOM Government, took time out of their schedules to meet in Belize with their peers to discuss the collective interests of the Caribbean.
From the moment they arrived at the Peninsula, they were strictly all about business, as if braced for an impending crisis.
Prime Minister Dean Barrow - Interim Chair, CARICOM
"I may be forgiven for thinking, and hope to make clear, that our issues and challenges are particularly pronounced at this time."
Ambassador Irwin LaRocque - Secretary General, CARICOM
"The Caribbean community has demonstrated time and again that it has resolve the capacity and the resilience to maintain the cost of integration. We have done so, aware that it is the only path that will provide a viable, prosperous and sustainable society for our people to enjoy. The deliberations over the next two days will advance that process."
Prime Minister Dean Barrow
"We talk less and do more. If there is a perceived mismatch between CARICOM rhetoric and CARICOM achievement, we need to tone down the rhetoric and step up the achievement."
And, with those sobering thoughts in mind, these 15 leaders and their technical teams dove into a rigorous schedule of meetings on topics such as De-risking, climate change, managing the Zika epidemic, and crime and security.
There was little to no room for deviation in the timetable, and as soon as the Heads of Government entered the early sessions, they were locked in, for hours, in meetings which went late into the evenings.
Ambassador Irwin LaRocque
"There is an agenda of course which has been established, there is a process of establishing the agenda, first to the community council and then to the consultation with the Chairman Prime Minister Barrow. We determine a draft agenda which will be put before the meeting today. The formal sessions of the meeting, the plenary discussions actually will start in the next few minutes and of course at that point we will go through the agenda. In my briefings with the Prime Minister I think we are well set to have a good discussion and a few very critical issues of interest to the community."
Some 40+ hours later, the Secretary General and the Interim Chairman of CARICOM sat down with the press and outlined a number of detailed resolutions. The energy expended to get to this point was very apparent.
Prime Minister Dean Barrow
"We've had a most fruitful and productive discussion over the last two days and we have agreed to take action on a number of areas of interest for our community."
Ambassador Irwin LaRocque
"You'd be surprise to know the amount of work our heads of government have achieved in a day and a half. Some of the topics as you have heard are fairly witty, but they were dealt with thoroughly and with guides to action."
Prime Minister Dean Barrow will retain Chairmanship of CARICOM until mid-2016, when it will rotate to another CARICOM Member State.
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