Michelle Kantrow reports that the INTERREG IV Caribbean program 2007/2013 will be held for the first time in Puerto Rico on November 28-29, 2013, at the InterContinental San Juan Resort & Casino. Here are excerpts:

The Regional Council of Guadeloupe, the entity that has been in charge of managing the INTERREG IV program that concerns all countries and territories of the Caribbean basin, will be represented at the meeting alongside the regional councils of Martinique and French Guiana, as well as representatives from St. Martin and St. Barths, [which] act as “Regional Contact Points.”

The summit’s priorities are to promote growth and employment through innovation and the knowledge economy; to reinforce attractiveness by improved accessibility and connectivity of the territories; to develop and protect the environmental capital through common and sustainable resource management and hazards prevention; and to stimulate the bringing together of the populations, the development of common services and synergies between governmental institutions and territories to reinforce social cohesion and integration in the Caribbean.

[. . .] The regional effort to bring the greater Caribbean closer together, and integrate the French territories, has an operating budget of more than $80 million, funded by the European Union’s Regional European Development Fund and the Regional Councils of French Guyana, Guadeloupe & Martinique, St. Barthelemy & St. Martin, the French central government, and the private sector.

The INTERREG IV Caribbean area of cooperation covers nearly all Caribbean countries, including: Anguilla, Aruba, Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Bermuda, Bonaire, British Virgin Islands, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, Cayman Islands, Curacao, Guadeloupe, Jamaica, Martinique, Montserrat, Puerto Rico, Saba, St. Barthelemy, St. Eustatius, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Maarten, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks & Caicos. The footprint also blankets Belize, part of Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Guyana, French Guiana, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, El Salvador, and Venezuela.

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