Prime Min­is­ter of Saint Lu­cia, Philip Pierre, who is in­com­ing chair­man of Cari­com, has pledged to steer the re­gion­al bloc to­wards a more peo­ple-cen­tred ap­proach, say­ing in­te­gra­tion must de­liv­er tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits in the dai­ly lives of Caribbean cit­i­zens.

Pierre said he ac­cepts the chair­man­ship “with hu­mil­i­ty, de­ter­mi­na­tion, and a deep sense of ser­vice,” stress­ing that Cari­com’s en­dur­ing strength lies in its found­ing prin­ci­ple that mem­ber states achieve more to­geth­er than alone. He not­ed that while the Caribbean con­tin­ues to face glob­al eco­nom­ic un­cer­tain­ty, cli­mate pres­sures and so­cial chal­lenges, co­op­er­a­tion re­mains the most ef­fec­tive path for­ward.

Across the re­gion, Pierre said cit­i­zens are in­creas­ing­ly ques­tion­ing how Cari­com di­rect­ly im­proves their lives. That ques­tion, he added, must now guide the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s agen­da.