With free movement taking effect by October, Caribbean governments face a broader question: Can this fractured bloc transform into a strategic regional power?
Last week, four CARICOM nations — Barbados, Belize, Dominica, and St Vincent and the Grenadines — confirmed they will implement full free movement of nationals by October 1. Bermuda is finalising terms for full CARICOM membership. Jamaica’s Prime Minister Andrew Holness announced a regional petition to King Charles III for reparatory justice in the Caribbean, guided by the CARICOM Reparations Commission.
These are not routine updates. Together, they suggest the region may be inching towards deeper, more consequential integration.
This October, CARIFESTA returns to Barbados for the first time since 1981 — and for the first time since the country became a republic. Then, as now, the region stood at a crossroads. What’s different now is the urgency. Climate pressure, global instability, and rising debt are exposing the limits of sovereignty by passport. Citizens want results. The region needs power — the kind that comes from coordination, not nostalgia.
The CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) already allows for the movement of people, services, and capital. In principle, a consultant in Barbados can advise a client in Grenada, a patient from Saint Lucia can get medical care in Trinidad, or a Jamaican IT firm can set up a branch in Antigua. But rights are uneven and protections inconsistent. Implementation lags. Trinidad and Tobago has even floated the idea of a public consultation before joining the October mobility plan.
Commonwealth Caribbean Rhodes Scholar Rahym Augustin-Joseph, writing in St Lucia Times, recently warned that CARICOM’s treaty framework is the only mechanism that guarantees equal treatment for Caribbean nationals. Leaving the bloc, he argued, would leave microstates like Saint Lucia vulnerable — not only diplomatically but economically.
Unity also depends on financial resilience. A UWI analysis, also published by St Lucia Times, shows that many countries rely on narrow tax bases and external loans. VAT, the region’s dominant revenue tool, hits low-income families hardest. Citizenship by Investment (CBI) programmes have generated large sums — but are volatile. In St Kitts, CBI revenue collapsed by over 60 per cent in two years. St Vincent now spends 40 per cent of its revenue on debt service.
Some countries are adapting. Grenada and Saint Lucia are reforming tax policy and boosting compliance. Dominica is redirecting CBI funds towards infrastructure. These aren’t headline wins, but they matter. Sovereignty, after all, is built on sustainable revenue — not just treaties.
In this context, CARIFESTA is more than a festival. It is a test. The 1981 edition was rooted in vision — a cultural blueprint for regional expression. The 2025 edition must ask whether culture can still lead that kind of political imagination. Art doesn’t solve policy. But it animates belief. Culture invites citizens to imagine themselves as part of a collective — a necessary step for any region trying to move as one.
The next phase of Caribbean integration depends on more than declarations. It requires coordinated action in four areas:
1. Regional institutions must be strengthened — and studied
Agencies like CARPHA, the CXC, and the Caribbean Development Fund must be treated not as optional services, but as core public infrastructure — funded, governed, and trusted. Institutions like CXC offer models of functional integration that already serve millions of Caribbean people. These examples should be studied — not just praised — as blueprints for broader regional governance.
2. Economic policy needs greater coordination
Tax models, compliance tools, and fiscal strategies should be shared and aligned where possible. The region can’t afford fragmentation in an era of financial instability and external pressure.
3. Citizens must be part of the process
Free movement won’t succeed without public understanding. Governments must build civic trust through updated curriculum, public education, and consistent consultation — not just policy rollouts. This includes recognising the transnational scope of Caribbean cultures and restoring historical awareness of the land we occupy — beyond colonial timelines — through a new narrative of The People Who Came embedded in public education.
4. Culture must do more than entertain
CARIFESTA should be a forum for hard questions. Who are we, together? What is our regional story? Can we tell it — and fund it — ourselves? Beneath the recent controversy surrounding a social commentary kaiso banned by Starcom Network lies a deeper truth: the artist’s core message — that national culture is central to collective imagination, beliefs and action — still stands. This is not a time to be making sport with our power.
CARICOM is ultimately about sovereignty. Caribbean countries — fundamentally microstates — cannot depend on others to define justice, resilience, or growth for present or future generations. Free movement gives us an opening to mature into a strategic bloc — and to accelerate the potential of regional tools like the Caribbean Development Fund to leverage scalable social impact financing.
Any lagging decisions on regional integration will cost another decade we don’t have.
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