CARICOM Foundation for Art and Culture

• Author: Duke Pollard
• Profession: Sitting senior judge of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), the highest appellate municipal court of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM)
• Pages: 743-754

The CARICOM Foundation for Art and Culture 743

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THE CARICOM FOUNDATION

FOR ART AND CULTURE

Given the rich cultural heritage of the Caribbean Community whose Member States

have provided the world with the only new musical instrument of the twentieth century,

the steel pan, the calypso and reggae and enriched the literature of the world with the

works of three Nobel Prize Winners, Sir Arthur Lewis, Derek Walcott and Vidia Naipaul,

it is somewhat surprising that the Community was so lethargic in establishing a regional

organisation for the promotion of the arts and culture. It was only in 1997 that the

Inter-Governmental Agreement on the Establishment of the CARICOM Foundation

for Art and Culture entered into force. As early as 1973 the drafters of the Treaty of

Chaguaramas recognised the need for ‘the promotion of greater understanding among

its peoples and the advancement of their social, cultural and technological development’.

Similarly, the remit of the Council for Human and Social Development, established by

the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, includes the establishment of ‘policies and

programmes to promote the development of youth and women in the Community with

a view to encouraging and enhancing their participation in social, cultural, political

and economic activities’. The healthy concern of the political directorate with the culture

of the Region has found tangible expression in CARIFESTA which highlights the

variegated components of Caribbean Culture which transcends both political and

linguistic barriers of the Region.

Membership of the Foundation is restricted to Member States and Associate

Members of the Community and any country of the Caribbean region admitted by the

Board to participate in the regime. The principal decision-making organ of the

Foundation is the Board of Directors consisting of seven persons appointed by the

Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community. Of the seven persons appointed, four

must be nominated by the Regional Cultural Committee or such other successor body

appearing to the Secretary-General to be representative of persons associated with the

different areas of cultural and artistic activity in the Caribbean Community and three

persons nominated by the Standing Committee of Ministers responsible for Culture.

The objectives of the Foundation are to foster and promote the enjoyment of, and

the production of works in the arts, humanities and social sciences and in particular, to

assist, cooperate with and enlist the aid of organisations with objectives similar to

those of the Foundation. The Foundation also provides grants, scholarships, bursaries

or loans to persons in any Member State for study or research in the arts, humanities, or

social sciences or to persons in other countries for study or research in these fields in

Member States and makes awards to persons resident in any Member State or elsewhere