On Strengthening National Foundations for Regional Governance

• Author: Trevor Munroe
• Pages: 66-70

66NEWCONCEPTIONS OFREGIONALGOVERNANCE

I begin with a simple but what, to my mind, is a fundamental proposition

— new conceptions of regional governance, indeed the emergence and

sustainability of new realities of regional governance, must rest on solid

foundations of sub-regional or national governance. Hence while our

presentations and our panels at this conference appropriately focus on such

topics: as reconciling individual and collective exercise of sovereignty,

structure and functions of the CARICOM Commission, rationalizing the

functions of the organs of the community and the dynamics of integrated

development — all of these rest on the foundations of sand unless the pace,

the breadth and the depth of transformation of governance at the national

level is accelerated, consolidated and linked in positive ways with

rationalisation.

A main lesson, let us recall, of the disintegration of the first generation

of regional experiments at the political level, 11 or so, including the first

West Indian Federation between 1947 and 1963, is simply this — imposition

of regional arrangements from above, whether through pressure from

colonial powers or from national elites, however rational and elegant the

scheme, is non-sustainable unless accompanied by at least moderate levels

of support, involvement and satisfaction with governance from below. It is

no accident that in 2003 alone, so far there have been no less than eight

referendums, in various European countries consulting the population

regarding entry into the European Union.

My second observation is that the necessary levels of support,

involvement and satisfaction with subregional and national governance,

as a general rule in our region, do not now exist and need to be urgently

strengthened. Ten years ago the West Indian Commission in its report ‘Time

For Action’ had a section of that report entitled ‘dissatisfaction with

governance’.1 Those dissatisfactions with governance often years ago persist

today and arguably may have worsened.

Indeed, Selwyn Ryan, confirmed in surveys2 done in the OECS, in

Trinidad and Tobago and in Guyana between 2000 and 2001, significant

ON STRENGTHENING NATIONALON STRENGTHENING NATIONAL

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Trevor Munroe

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