The mandate
What the two organisations have undertaken to build together — and why the gap between announcement and delivery is worth keeping a record of.
The difficulty is not principally that this partnership misses its deadlines. It is that it rarely sets any. Ten of the fourteen undertakings made in September 2021 — including weekly direct flights, a Multilateral Air Services Agreement, a joint media platform and two entirely new institutions — were adopted with no date, no owner and no review point. Every commitment that did carry a date has been missed.
Summit communiqués are widely reported. Their implementation is not. Between the announcement of a commitment and any account of whether it was met there is usually nothing at all — and in a relationship conducted largely through declarations, that space is where accountability disappears.
This site is an attempt to close it. It is documentary rather than argumentative: every entry names the document and, where available, the paragraph in which the commitment appears. Where something cannot be sourced, that is stated rather than inferred.
Pillars
Where the substance of this relationship actually sits, and what stands in its way.
Connectivity
The binding constraint. There is no scheduled direct maritime or air service between the regions; cargo routes via Europe or North America. Until that changes, most trade projections do not survive contact with a shipping schedule.
Trade & finance
Afreximbank has raised its Caribbean financing ceiling to US$5bn. A Caribbean Trade Centre, an Export-Import Bank and a payments system are all in train — necessary infrastructure, though the evidence suggests finance is not what binds.
Food security
The clearest commercial logic on either side. The Caribbean imports food at scale; Africa has supply and comparable growing conditions. Phytosanitary regimes and shipping are the friction.
Standards & conformity
The quiet obstacle. For goods to move, a certificate issued in Accra has to be accepted in Bridgetown. Whether any recognition pathway links the two regions' quality infrastructure is an open question.
Health
HeDPAC — the Health Development Partnership for Africa and the Caribbean — gives this pillar an institutional home already, covering manufacturing capacity and regulatory harmonisation.
Reparatory justice
The political centre of the 2025 summit, and the fastest-moving workstream on the record: from announcement to a first joint mechanism meeting in nine months.
Latest briefing
- Five Billion Dollars Will Not Fix It
The partnership has money and political will. What it does not have is a container ship — and IMF research published this year suggests financial connectivity is not the binding constraint at all.
- Continental context: AfCFTA and the AU's stalled free-movement protocol
Neither is a CARICOM commitment, but both shape what this partnership can eventually carry. One is most of the way to ratified. The other has been stuck at four ratifications since 2019.