Caribbean Marine Association Promotes Dialogue towards “One Sea”

Caribbean Marine Association Promotes Dialogue towards “One Sea”

The Caribbean Marine Association (CMA) recently completed a technical assistance project “Capacity building of the Caribbean Marine Association for policy dialogue and promotion of the sector towards the goals of many islands One Sea.”

The project was implemented from January to September 2011. This project was supported by Centre for Development of Enterprise (CDE) which contributed €29,738.00 to the overall project budget of €44,927.00; the remainder was contributed by the CMA in cash and kind.

The specific objective of this project was to build the capacity of the CMA to support the industry in policy dialogue and Caribbean yacht destination promotion, by developing the tools which would allow CMA to carry out its mandate on a sustainable basis.

During the life of the project, there were some constraints to the completion of all components due to time and budgetary limits, however despite the challenges to the implementation of all outputs of the project, CMA brought off the hosting of the CMA Annual General Meeting and appointment of the new Board of Directors (2011-2013). At this meeting, the core priorities for the CMA were identified and the Board elected.

The CMA needs to be the authoritative voice on yachting matters in the Caribbean and much of this project was directed at establishing this position for the CMA. We are only on the bottom rung of the ladder and there are many years of effort ahead if the goals of the project are to be achieved”

In moving forward, the CMA will be seeking further donor funds as well as allocating membership fees to implement much of its proposed work-plan, and in particular operate the CMA Secretariat. The development of the funding proposal along with an aggressive membership drive will be the forefront of the CMA’s immediate activities for sustainable capacity building and way forward.