GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CMC) — The Caribbean Community (Caricom) says it has officially established baselines and targets for human development across the region.

A statement from the Guyana-based secretariat said the regional grouping in collaboration with the Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) has launched virtually, the Caricom Baseline Report for Phase One of the Caricom Human Resource Development (C-HRD) 2030 Strategy.

It said the report provides a snapshot of the region’s readiness to report on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Phase One of the Regional Action Plan (RAP) for implementation 2017-2021.

“It presents regional baselines and recommended targets for measuring access and participation, quality, equity, and relevance in Basic Education, Skills for Life-Long Learning and the Tertiary Education sectors. Targets for these indicators, including the cross-sectoral enablers that are envisaged as critical to successful strategy implementation, are also proposed,” the secretariat said.

Caricom assistant secretary-general for human and social development, Dr Douglas Slater, said the region is experiencing unusual times, but it is a moment in history that is ripe with an opportunity to actualise a vision for human development in the Caribbean.

He said the secretariat was honoured to celebrate its collaboration with the CDB which resulted in the development of the report for the C-HRD 2030 Strategy.

Grenada’s Minister of Education, Human Resource Development, Religious Affairs and Information, Emmalin Pierre, in her address praised both the CDB and Caricom for what she referred to as an excellent partnership that has produced a much-needed HRD Strategy and signalled a paradigm shift in the region, as it relates to data-driven interventions for the education system.

“This partnership will propel us, as policymakers, to support and implement more evidence-based approaches that result in greater benefits for the people of the region. The emphasis that will be placed on monitoring and evaluation will no doubt lead to greater results, as we seek to take a united approach to address the many issues and challenges confronting us as a region,” she said.

She challenged the team to work towards the development of a seamless education system and policy infrastructure needed to sustain the vision of the strategy.

“This crisis must never be an excuse for why we cannot achieve; why we cannot commit to our goals. We must still aim to achieve the goals of this strategy, as outlined. The crisis we face must therefore be the motivation to push ahead to quickly to fill the gaps, to quickly address the deficiencies in data and to find ways to maximise our output in education,” she added.

CDB Vice President of Operations, Diana Wilson-Patrick, spoke of the importance and value of the report in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

She said that loss of learning was a distinct reality and the digital divide exposed the vulnerable and compromised their constrained learning opportunities. According to her, sustained action was needed to address some of the structural deficits affecting the Region’s HRD system.

“We must correct the misalignment of education and training with labour market needs. We must chart a new direction away from the dogged persistence with traditional modes of teaching which are out of sync with a world defined by technology, innovation, creativity, networking and 21st-century competencies and skills,” she added.

The Caricom Human Resource Development 2030 Strategy was presented and approved at the Thirty-Eighth Meeting of the Council for Human and Social Development, 2019.