Regional Integration

A Form Four Social Studies Presentation

Compiled by: Eleese Durant & Roel Rattan

Bates Memorial High School of SDA
June 2023
What is Regional Integration

Regional Integration is a process in which neighboring countries enter into an

agreement in order to upgrade cooperation through common institutions and rules. The
objectives of the agreement could range from economic to political to environmental,
although it has typically taken the form of a political economy initiative where commercial
interests are the focus for achieving broader socio-political and security objectives, as
defined by national governments. Regional integration has been organized either via
supranational institutional structures or through intergovernmental decision-making, or a
combination of both.
Past efforts at regional integration have often focused on removing
barriers to free trade in the region, increasing the free movement of
people, labour, goods, and capital across national borders, reducing the
possibility of regional armed conflict (for example, through
Confidence and Security-Building Measures), and adopting cohesive
regional stances on policy issues, such as the environment, climate
change and migration.
Regional integration allows countries to overcome these costly
divisions integrating goods, services and factors' markets, thus
facilitating the flow of trade, capital, energy, people and ideas.

Joint or cooperative action by a group of states, through regional

integration, allows these states to provide common services to their
citizens with greater efficiency and at reduced costs since their
resources are pooled.
The first attempt at integration in the Caribbean
dates from 1958 with the creation of the West
Indies Federation. The United Kingdom had
launched this initiative as means to rationalize its
colonial administration; however, the project was
abandoned as Caribbean islands gained
independence.
How does Regional Integration
benefit my country?
Benefits
● Help sales economics in infrastructure(such as transportation and
communications networks—and in research and development)
● Enhancing functional policy coordination in the areas of common
challenges
● Greater employment opportunities
● Expansion of trade
● Bigger market for our goods and services
● Facilitating the flow of trade, capital, energy, people and ideas.
Examples of regional
integration
● On January 14, 1991, the four
Windward Islands of Dominica,
Grenada, St. Lucia. and St.
Vincent and the Grenadines
launched an initiative to create a
political Union among
themselves when they
established the Regional
Constituent Assembly of the
Windward Islands on political
union.
 CARICOM SECRETARIAT HEADQUARTERS

● The establishment of the

Caribbean Community
and Common Market
(CARICOM) was the result
of a 15-year effort to fulfil
the hope of regional
integration which was born
with the establishment of
the British West Indies
Federation in 1958.
What was the Caribbean's first attempt
at regional integration?
The establishment of the Caribbean
Community and Common Market
(CARICOM) was the result of a 15-year
effort to fulfil the hope of regional
integration which was born with the
establishment of the British West
Indies Federation in 1958.
● The Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA)
was a regional free-trade arena in place
between 1965 to 1972. The Caribbean
Community and Common Market (CARICOM)
was established to replace the Caribbean Free
Trade Area which had failed in its mission to
develop policies in the region pertaining to labor
and capital.
 ● The carifta games
The CARIFTA Games is an annual athletics competition
founded by the Caribbean Free Trade Association
(CARIFTA). The games was first held in 1972 and consists of
track and field events including sprint races, hurdles,
middle distance track events, jumping and throwing events,
and relays. The Games has two age categories: under-17
(under-18 until 2017) and under-20. Only countries
associated with CARIFTA may compete in the competition.
In 1972, Austin Sealy,[1] then president of the
Amateur Athletic Association of Barbados, inaugurated the
CARIFTA Games to mark the transition from the
Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA) to the Caribbean
Community (CARICOM). CARIFTA was meant to enhance
relations between the English-speaking countries of the
Caribbean after the dissolution of the West Indies Federation, but
the CARIFTA Games took that idea a step further, including the
French and Dutch Antilles in an annual junior track and field
championship meet.
 Strengthening caribbean regional integration

The Caribbean economies have long recognized the value of

working together. Improving regional integration—for instance,
through more intraregional trade and policy coordination—can
help the region’s small-size economies build greater resilience
and scale, as well as enhance bargaining power on the global
stage.
According to the latest IMF research, further liberalizing trade and labor mobility in
the region can generate significant economic benefits—potentially over 7 percent
of the region’s GDP in 2018.

Work in progress

Compared to other well-integrated regions, like the ECCU and EU, the
Caribbean lags. The integration indices, which measure the degree of
intraregional economic and institutional integration, suggest that Caribbean
community’s integration has proceeded in several waves, with periods of
integration followed by slowdowns in progress, including in removing
remaining tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade and constraints on
intraregional labor movement.
THE END