Manning opens people's summit; T&T gets poor scores on implementing summit mandates

Trinidad & Tobago's Prime Minister Patrick Manning formally opened the Fifth Summit of the Americas on board the cruise ship, Caribbean Victory, which is docked in Port-of-Spain. But the high profile guests, including U.S. President Barack Obama, are yet to arrive for the two-day conference, which begins on Friday.

“I welcome you to the Fifth Summit of the Americas,” he told hundreds of guests from civil society and public life.

He thanked the groups for helping people, noting that they play a critical role in the development of a people and society. “The effects of civil society’s work have often been lost to those of us who toil in other vineyards,” he said.

Manning said governments must not govern in their own interests but in the interests of the people, adding that a nation is judged on how it treats its least fortunate citizens. In that context, he said, civil society has the potential to make nations great.

“This my dear friends is a People’s Summit. In the end it will be the people who benefit....Your deliberations will go a considerable way to improving the lives of the people in the hemisphere.”

While Manning is sounding upbeat ahead of the summit, an implementation index to be released Thursday shows that Trinidad and Tobago performed poorly on implementing mandates from the last four Summits of the Americas.

The index shows Trinidad and Tobago at 0.09 on Freedom of Expression, 0.08 in Access to Information, 0.04 Decentralisation and Local Government, 0.18 for Citizen Participation and 0.02 on gender perspectives.

Dr Kris Rampersad , International Relations Director of the Network of Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) said these scores have been developed by the Active Democracy Network, grading 24 countries in the region with respect to keeping their pledge to implement measures agreed at previous summits.

Rampersad said Trinidad and Tobago has done virtually nothing in these areas.

Hazel Brown, president of the Network of NGOs, said one reason why Governments have not implemented the mandates from previous Summits is because of a lack of information. "They agree to things and they sign things and nobody knows," she told reporters.

"One of the proposals that we are making is that when you go and you sign things on our behalf in our name when you come back please tell us," she said.

"We have insisted that what this summit must be about is to look at those 634 mandates that were made in the last four summits and determine what the priorities are and how together citizens and Government we will ensure for the benefit of ourselves and our children the implementation of those mandates. Those things cannot be implemented without this kind of cross sectoral collaboration between all of us as citizens."

Brown noted that the Jamaican government has said it is willing to work with the civil society representatives to see how they can improve their performance.