Caribbean forum: Shaping a sustainable development agenda to address the Caribbean reality in the twenty-first century

Twelve years into the 21st Century, Caribbean countries continue to face considerable challenges on their path towards sustainable development and the creation of a post-2015 agenda. These include redefining their niche in the global market place in line with significant shifts in global production systems and trade, recovering from burdensome fiscal deficits and coping with climate change and the negative effects of more frequent natural disasters. In some countries poverty levels are increasing after years of decline. Most have defined a vision for development into the next 20 years, but in light of the global recession these targets may be hard to attain. Caribbean SIDS will require continued international support in the medium-term. This is a paper in 6 parts. It reviews a number of factors and issues of importance to Caribbean society, economy and ecology as countries in the region seek to grapple with the fall out from the crises in food, fuel and finance, consider the emerging challenges, and halt any resultant derailment of their development trajectory. It gives a status analysis of socioeconomic and socio-environmental conditions in the Caribbean, analyzes the results of Rio+20, the Secretary General’s High Level panels on Global Sustainability (GSP) and Post 2015 Development (HLP) Reports for the Caribbean and looks forward to the SIDS 2014 Conference and the post-2015 development agenda.