Abstract
The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) has recognized regional integration as an important development strategy for addressing the unique vulnerabilities of its member small island developing states (SIDS). Food security in the Caribbean is a fundamental social and ecological challenge in which the dynamics of regional integration are increasingly playing out. CARICOM members have subsequently identified a number of shared food security problems and have endorsed regional goals and approaches to address them; however, progress towards solutions has been slow. Recognizing that evidence-based studies on the potential factors limiting sustained progress are lacking, we undertook a comparative policy analysis to understand better the various approaches and framings of food security at national and regional levels with a view to assessing coherence. We identify considerable divergence in how regional and local policy institutions frame and approach food security problems in CARICOM and then identify ways through which the policy integration objectives for enhanced regional food security might be progressed, with a particular focus on social learning.
Highlights
The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is an economic grouping of 15 countries with a common colonial history
Approaches to food security The approaches to food security operating among national governments and regional institutions are represented in Figures 1 and 2
We find that approaches to food security adopted by national governments are more multidimensional, reflecting their greater understanding of the social and economic issues tied to food security; these include rising food prices, support for small businesses, and youth employment opportunities
Summary
The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is an economic grouping of 15 countries with a common colonial history. Most CARICOM nations are small island developing states (SIDS), characterized by their small size, insularity, proneness to natural disasters, limited land availability and CONTACT integration into global markets (Pelling & Uitto, 2001; Turvey, 2007; United Nations, 2011). These features render the Caribbean SIDS highly susceptible to a range of environmental, economic and human development challenges, which are known to be intensifying with globalization and environmental change (McGillivray, Naude, & Santos-Paulino, 2010; Pelling & Uitto, 2001; Wong, 2011). While there are different theories about how regional integration occurs, there is general agreement that it involves new forms of collaboration and coordination among actors at different scales of governance (Soderbaum, 2009)
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