BRIDGETOWN, Barbados – The curtains will come down today on the 28th Caricom Summit with a clear promise to vigorously make ‘functional co-operation’ a more people-focused development of the 34-year-old community.

The extent to which the leaders may have succeeded in achieving this position over three days of plenary and caucus sessions, should be known today at a closing media briefing and from the Conference Communiqué.

One thing seems evident: If the promise to achieve “functional co-operation” – the so-called “second pillar” of the region’s integration movement – fell victim to lack of a shared vision and commitment at this year’s summitry politics, then expect cynicism and frustration, if not despair to rise.

Until last February’s Inter-Sessional Meeting of Caricom leaders in St Vincent and the Grenadines, when they added “security” as a fourth pillar, the three so-called “primary pillars” of regional integration have been trade and economic development; functional co-operation and foreign policy.

For a working definition on what “functional co-operation” is all about, a relevant quote comes from the author of the path-finding report titled Towards a Single Economy and a Single Development Vision, Professor Norman Girvan, one of the region’s highly respected economists and thinkers.

“Functional co-operation, the second pillar of our integration movement”, he said, “is quite important…It is not necessarily based on legal instruments or on the operation of market mechanisms; it is essentially a process of sharing services and undertaking joint activities in order to reduce costs and achieve synergies…”

Kinds of functional co-operation identified by Girvan in his report – endorsement of which is a major expectation of the summit – include health, human resources development, security, communication (eg air and sea transportation), foreign trade policies, and research and development.

Girvan and his team from the Caricom Secretariat and Special Task Force on the Single Economy who produced the “single vision for development” report, are encouraged by the open call for unanimous endorsement that has come from Caricom chairman Prime Minister Owen Arthur of Barbados.

For all the soothing official rhetoric, a disappointing aspect of the current Caricom summit was the public swipes taken at the opening ceremony by two prime ministers against two member governments, on issues that could have waited for a plenary or caucus session.

Host Prime Minister Arthur, as he looked across to his Trinidadian counterpart, Patrick Manning, said that while intra-regional trade had grown from 13 to 20 per cent over the 10-year period 1995-2005, “this has largely been to the benefit of one country, Trinidad and Tobago”. This situation, as he stressed, “is unsustainable”.

The other public warning that may have been unhelpful to private discussions on regional air transport, was that from Vincentian Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, for whom keeping LIAT alive and expanding in services, has become a virtual obsession.

It was Gonsalves’ finger-pointing at the new government in St Lucia for moving in a claimed subversive manner to undercut LIAT with inter-island competition from American Eagle, while failing to offer financial support to the regional carrier, that had evoked some tension.

Given these and other related problems, therefore, today’s official communiqué would be anxiously awaited to learn of agreements, the progress achieved at this 28th Caricom Summit. Moving forward or same ole’ story on delayed action.