Jacqueline Emmanuel: The Opportunities of the OECS Free Movement Regime

ParlAmericas Podcast

This episode was recorded on day two of the two-day parliamentary meeting titled ‘Parliamentary Perspectives for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration in Latin America and the Caribbean' which was held at the National Assembly of Panama from October 24 to 25, 2023. The meeting was organized within the framework of the 2023 Latin America and the Caribbean Climate Week of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

In the session “Contributions of migration to socio-economic development", the invited panellist, Jacqueline Emmanuel, Director of Economic Affairs & Regional Integration at the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) and expert in development planning, finance and trade promotion, among others topics, presented on the features of the OECS Free Movement Regime.

This regime is designed to allow citizens to live, work, and travel freely among the member states of the OECS Economic Union with little to no restrictions. However, given the risk of global economic and health threats as well as the rapidly changing climate which all contribute to more frequent population displacement in the Eastern Caribbean, the presentation covers the opportunities of implementing policies of the regime to address mass migration, including during disaster response and other crisis events.