Minister of Energy and Business, Senator Lisa Cummins, has described the recently launched UN Global Compact Caribbean Network and the Sustainable SME and Supply Chain Programme as “timely” for the region.
Senator Cummins made the comments as she engaged in a Fireside Chat, under the theme Forward Faster for Sustainable Businesses, during the launch event, at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre, on Wednesday.
She told her audience: “What we just did in terms of launching the network and bringing all of these businesses into partnership with the United Nations is really the kind of collaboration that we need in the supply chain to support SMEs.”
Barbados, she said, imports more than it exports. She added that if each small and medium-sized enterprise imported its goods, the business was not achieving cost efficiencies, and those costs were passed on to consumers.
“The supply chain therefore has to allow for SMEs to connect with other SMEs, not just nationally but regionally, to consolidate their imports and their trade overall throughout the region, in order to facilitate cost efficiencies, and then to ensure that they’re able to maximise their return on investment because they’re cutting their internal costs.
“But then that has a consequence as well for skills. We…are talking about transitioning for energy. We want to be able to use more local businesses, especially more of the SMEs in the energy transition, but we need to be able to equip them with the skills. We don’t want to import 100% of our labour, so again, we need to make sure that we are integrating our skills and our production into global supply chains to ensure that we are not just meeting the targets, but we’re meeting them in a just way that is inclusive, and puts people at the centre of our transition,” Senator Cummins explained.
She indicated that if countries like Barbados could not procure energy supplies to facilitate their transition, and our small and medium-sized enterprises were being pushed to the back of the queue because they’re simply too small or the scale was not efficient, the countries would not meet their development goals.
“It is through initiatives like these…, and the work being done by partners like yourselves every day that will allow us to be able to meet those goals,” Minister Cummins stated.
The new Caribbean Regional Network will enable the UN Global Compact to grow its regional presence and better mobilise the private sector in support of Caribbean sustainable development priorities in line with UN, Government, and private sector commitments.