SICA Meeting Discusses Migration and Climate Change
Belize holds the pro-tem presidency of SICA until the end of the year when it will be handed over to Guatemala. Today, the meeting of the Regional Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs was held at the Biltmore Plaza prior to a summit to the end the six-month presidency and begin the new rotation. At today’s meeting, the agenda discussed pressing issues ahead of the Summit of the Heads of Central America and the Dominican Republic. Dominating the discussions were the existential threat of climate change that has been adversely affecting the member countries and the larger issue of migration; both which are difficult to mitigate. But Minister of Foreign Affairs, Wilfred ‘Sedi’ Elrington says that the meeting was to put in place a strategic plan going forward for the region.
Wilfred ‘Sedi’ Elrington
Wilfred ‘Sedi’ Elrington, Minister of Foreign Affairs
“It’s a very experienced process to adapt and to mitigate and so we have got to make discussions as to how we will get the funding, access to the Green Climate Fund and other assistance that we need. The whole question of migration is another vexing one because the fact that our citizens feel the need to leave our country to go abroad to suffer all kinds of indignities and harm and suffering because they don’t perceive that they are safe or can’t make a living in their own country has to be a wakeup call for all of us in the region. Both climate change and migration alike, we need to get funding from international partners and we do get. We get a lot of funding from our international partners. But there is a paradox. The record shows that thirty years ago, ten percent of Africans were poor. And in those days, they weren’t getting any aid. And now forty years later, the suggestion is that forty percent of Africa is poor and they have been getting lots of aid. So there is not a correlation between the aid that you are getting. As a matter of fact the aid seems to be making you poorer. So we have got to rethink the strategy.”
