JEAN Robert Goulongana, secretary-general of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of states said developing countries such as Jamaica must learn quickly to adapt to the challenges posed by goblisation or face certain extinction.

“Adapt or die,” Goulongana said Tuesday during a lecture on the Contonou Agreement at the Mona School of Business, University of the West Indies (UWI).

Goulongana, who specifically addressed negotiations between ACP states and the European Union (EU) on Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), said now was the time to for developing states to act.

In fact, the secretary general warned that it would not to be business as usual, in terms of the scope and scale of aid and preferential trading arrangements between ACP states and the developed economies of Europe, come January 1, 2008 when the current protocol ends.

In a wide ranging address, Goulongana took his audience through the changing dynamics of what were formerly LOME conventions under which ACP states like Jamaica were guaranteed markets at fixed prices above world market prices for commodities like bananas. He also touched on the matter of development funding, noting that under the new “rules,” development assistance would be “by indication not guarantee”.

He explained that this meant that countries that utilised existing funding efficiently would get additional support.

Said Goulongana: “If Jamaica performs well it will get more money and if it does badly the money will be taken away”. He added that under the next Agreement, worth some $20 billion Euros overall, Jamaica would have to compete aggressively for its share of financing with other developing nations.

According to Goulongana, the existing preferential arrangements resulted from “donor fatigue” accruing from “over 30 years of failures”. Under these arrangements, he explained, EU states disbursed billions to developing states, which in turn had demonstrated very little progress in critical areas such as economic growth and competitiveness and the development of new products and markets.

The secretary general said further that the practice of preferential treatment involving guaranteed prices and fixed markets had also come under attack from the World Trade organisation (WTO) which had declared them untenable under its rules.

Goulongana said that while under LOME, only the Government was involved in the management of aid, the new protocols would involve “new players ” such as civil society and the private sector in determining priorities and strategies for development.

He noted that these changes would be particularly significant in places like Jamaica where approximately 4,000 non- governmental organisations (NGOs) were registered. He reiterated that while preferential arrangements would “not disappear overnight”, the country would be well advised to make the transition as efficiently as possible.