CASTRIES, St Lucia – The Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) assembly is set to convene for its sixth sitting on March 18, 2022, at 9.30 a.m. under the theme: The Shift: Embracing New Platforms and Innovative Models for Leadership in Sustainability.
The sitting will be a hybrid meeting with the members of the Assembly participating virtually as well as in-person, at the seat of the Assembly, being Parliament Building in St John’s Antigua. The sitting will be live-streamed on the OECS official Facebook page.
The OECS Assembly is a deliberative forum that brings together both government and opposition members of the parliaments and legislatures of the eleven OECS Member States, to consider and seek common solutions to issues that affect the OECS region.
The OECS region, comprising island states, is susceptible to climate change events. At the recently concluded United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 26) (Nov 21), OECS and other Caribbean states addressed their concerns to the Conference attendees.
The Caribbean islands have been identified as one of the world’s top biodiversity hotspots, with both a high level of regionally unique species and a severe degree of habitat loss and vulnerability to extinction. Unfortunately, conservation and sustainable management is often hampered by institutional challenges and competing goals of economic growth and national development, which are often perceived as being at odds with environmental protection and conservation. This Assembly will elevate the discourse on the health, productivity and diversity of the region’s ecosystems and biological resources as essential to economic viability and overall prosperity.
This sixth sitting provides an avenue for further discourse on common issues and positions for the region, proposed initiatives and follow up actions for the UN Climate Change COP 27 in Egypt and the UN Biodiversity COP 15 in Kunming, China this year.
The sixth sitting of the OECS Assembly meeting is convened with the support of the European Union under the BioSPACE and ILM projects and the International Conservation Caucus Foundation (ICCF) Group.
