Statement by the Government of St. Kitts and Nevis on the 5th Anniversary of Africa-CARICOM Day

September 7, 2026

Today, September 7, the Government and people of Saint Kitts and Nevis proudly join our brothers and sisters across the Caribbean, the African continent, and the wider Global African Diaspora in commemorating the fifth anniversary of Africa-CARICOM Day.

Five years ago, on September 7, 2021, the first Africa-CARICOM Summit brought our regions together in a historic virtual gathering and established this day as an enduring symbol of unity, solidarity, and shared purpose. Since then, the relationship between Africa and the Caribbean has continued to evolve from one rooted primarily in common ancestry and historical experience into an increasingly strategic partnership focused on trade, investment, diplomacy, health, education, culture, climate resilience and sustainable development.

However, the story between both regions began long before 2021.

The Atlantic Ocean that separates our shores carries the memory of a painful history. The Transatlantic Slave Trade violently uprooted millions of Africans from their homes and attempted to sever language, culture, identity, and family. Yet, what survived that unimaginable rupture was the determination of a people to endure.

Across the Caribbean today, Africa lives in our rhythms, our food, our spirituality, our language, our traditions, our strength and our understanding of who we are.

We therefore commemorate this day by asking what we intend to build together.

For Saint Kitts and Nevis, the answer is clear: the historical bridge between Africa and the Caribbean must now become a bridge of opportunity.

That conviction was articulated by Prime Minister the Honourable Dr. Terrance Drew at the Second Africa–CARICOM Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on September 7, 2025. Addressing African and Caribbean leaders, Prime Minister Drew called for the painful legacy of the Atlantic Slave Trade to be transformed into an “Atlantic Bridge, a bridge of hope, a bridge of advancement.” He called for an action-driven relationship encompassing trade, investment, health, education, climate action, global financial reform, transportation, cultural exchange and reparatory justice.

Saint Kitts and Nevis has sought to give practical meaning to those words.

Our relationship with the Republic of Ghana, for example, has developed significantly. During Prime Minister Drew’s Official State Visit to Ghana earlier this year, our two governments formalised a mechanism for structured political consultation and expanded cooperation across economic, commercial, scientific, technical and cultural areas. We also removed visa requirements for ordinary passport holders travelling between Saint Kitts and Nevis and Ghana, breaking down one of the most immediate barriers to stronger people-to-people, business, tourism and educational engagement.

The partnership has extended directly into the lives of our citizens. A bilateral labour agreement with Ghana has facilitated the recruitment of medical professionals to strengthen healthcare delivery in Saint Kitts and Nevis, including the recent arrival of 47 trained Ghanaian nurses who are now contributing to our hospitals and clinics. At the same time, engagement between our Ministry of Education and the University of Ghana is creating pathways for greater academic, research, cultural, and youth cooperation.

These are not abstract diplomatic achievements. They represent Africans and Caribbean people, once separated by history now learning from one another, working alongside one another, and contributing together to our shared development.

Our economic engagement is also growing. Through our partnership with the African Export-Import Bank, Afreximbank, Saint Kitts and Nevis has supported the wider effort to build stronger financial and commercial links between the Caribbean and Africa. The Federation was selected to host the fifth AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum, reflecting our determination to serve as a platform through which African and Caribbean businesses, governments, investors and entrepreneurs can meet, exchange ideas and develop new opportunities. Although the 2026 Forum was subsequently deferred because of the prevailing public-health circumstances, our commitment to its objectives remains firm.

Saint Kitts and Nevis has also embraced greater connectivity with the African continent and has positioned itself internationally as a strategic gateway through which African enterprise, Caribbean opportunity and global capital can intersect. That vision recognises an important truth: political solidarity must increasingly be supported by commercial relationships, investment flows, knowledge transfer, mobility and stronger connections between our people.

We remain equally united with Africa on the great moral and developmental questions of our time. Our regions are among those that continue to confront the consequences of historical exploitation, an inequitable international financial system and a climate crisis to which we contributed comparatively little. We therefore have every reason to speak together on reparatory justice, climate justice, debt sustainability, sustainable development and reform of global institutions.

During Saint Kitts and Nevis’ Chairmanship of CARICOM earlier this year, Prime Minister Drew reaffirmed the Community’s commitment to advancing the reparations agenda and ensuring that reparatory justice remains part of the Caribbean’s engagement with the international community. This work complements the growing partnership between CARICOM and Africa on justice for Africans and people of African descent.

This is the meaning of CARICOM–Africa Day in 2026.

Five years after Africa and CARICOM formally committed themselves to walking this path together, Saint Kitts and Nevis remains convinced that the future of this relationship must be measured not only by the warmth of our declarations, but by the movement of our people, the growth of our trade, the exchange of our knowledge, the strength of our institutions and the opportunities we create for generations still to come.

We are a small Federation, but we understand perhaps better than most that greatness has never been determined by geography or population. It is determined by courage, imagination, solidarity and the willingness to act.

Our African heritage is inseparable from our Kittitian and Nevisian identity. Our commitment to Africa is therefore not distant foreign policy. It is a reconnection with family and, equally, an investment in a shared future.

On this fifth anniversary of CARICOM–Africa Day, Saint Kitts and Nevis recommits itself to helping transform an ocean that once represented forced separation into an Atlantic Bridge of partnership, prosperity and possibility.

From Africa to the Caribbean and throughout the Global African Diaspora, may we continue to reconnect our people, combine our strengths, defend our common interests and build together the future our ancestors were denied but always deserved.

Happy CARICOM–Africa Day.

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