Impact Study: UNESCO-Aschberg Programme for Artists and Cultural Professionals

the EPA, where ratification is pending (Hungary, Luxembourg, Poland and Slovenia on the EU side; and the Bahamas, Jamaica, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and Haiti on the CARIFORUM side) 22 ; and some key players, such as Germany, only ratified the EPA in 2017. The EU is now eager to change this dynamic and turn tomore decisivemeasures and financingmechanisms that will bolster the EPA’s implementation 23 . Bilateral talks have taken place on some issues, such as mutual recognition (i.e. the recognition of certifications, qualifications or assessments from one country in the other without additional procedures), which is important to CARIFORUM States and partner agencies who have used EU funds to help CARIFORUM companies enter and compete in the EU market. Arguably, the EPA’s implementation process started in a highly unfavourable economic context - at the brink of the financial crisis and global economic recession – the negative effects of which are still being felt in many CARIFORUM States with declines in export earnings, balance of payments issues and increased debts. To address these challenges, economic diversification and new exports are required. In this context, the creative sector is being identified as a key area of potential growth. Almost every government in the CARIFORUM region has deepened its institutional focus on the creative sector with the aim of boosting exports and generating new sources of employment, particularly targeted at youth. It can be argued that political enthusiasm for industrial upgrading has been strengthened and that there has been increased, albeit limited, resource allocations for economic diversification, which have not easily translated into expanded market entry or proactive EPA implementation. Inmany respects, the challenges relate to operational and capacity constraints within the private sector and in public sector institutions. Most firms outside of the traditional commodity (e.g. bananas, sugar, and rice) and services (e.g. tourism, telecoms, financial) export sectors are micro and small enterprises, which generally face greater difficulty exporting.

It can be argued that economic and export structures in the Caribbean have remained largely unchanged post‑EPA

22. For the state of ratification, see the European Council database: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/documents-publications/treaties-agreements/ agreement/?id=2008034&DocLanguage=en 23. European Commission, How the EU Is Putting the CARIFORUM-EU EPA into Practice (Brussels, 2018).

37 Culture in the CARIFORUM-EU EPA