BELMOPAN, Belize (CMC) — Caricom leaders will meet with their counterparts from the Central American Integration System (SICA) early next month, Belize’s Prime Minister John Briceno has announced.

Briceno, who will be hosting the two-day inter-sessional summit of regional leaders from March 1-2, said the meeting with SICA one day later, comes 11 years after the last one was held.

Belize is a member of both organisations and plays a crucial role as the bridge between Central America and the Caribbean. It is his hoped that the San Pedro Declaration comes out of the meeting.

“SICA and Caricom have not met for the last 11 years and we believe that there must be a closer and stronger relationship between Caricom and the Central American countries, through SICA,” said Briceno, who is chairman of the 15-member regional integration grouping.

“If we can work together, we can have a bigger voice, a stronger voice in the international forum. So again, I have taken the opportunity to invite the presidents to come or their vice presidents to come on Thursday to come up with a joint declaration — what we are referring to as the San Pedro declaration.

“So it is an exciting time for Belize. We need to take advantage of that role that we can play. Belize is historically a part of the Caribbean, but geographically, we are a part of Central America so we can play that connection; we can create the connection between SICA and Caricom, but to do that, we have to be more active in SICA,” said Briceno, acknowledging that unfortunately, for many years, the past government of Belize was not active in SICA “so now we want to be able to do that so that we can create opportunities”.

Regarding the Caricom Inter-Sessional meeting, Briceno said the Caribbean leaders will have several issues on the agenda including the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

“The issue of vaccines, especially for children, issue of trade, so many other matters; issues of poverty that has affected us because of COVID-19. Climate change, these are issues that affect our daily lives so we will be here to have that discussion with the prime ministers of this region.”

Briceno said that the Secretary General of the United Nations Antonio Gutierrez is going to be in Belize for the first time to attend the summit.

“He is excited about seeing the work that we have been doing on the issues of conservation, the issues of climate change and fighting poverty. And also he’s excited to come and visit Belize,” Briceno added.