GOVERNMENTS of our Caribbean Community (CARICOM) are yet to come forward with any collective initiative in response to the current global economic crisis. Calls for a special meeting, even at the level of finance ministers, have not been acted upon.

Since then, the two-day special summit of the G20 group of nations – representing the traditional G-8 group of the rich and powerful and now including emerging major economic power houses like China, India and Brazil – has been concluded in Washington.

No doubt, the community's governments and private sector will pore over the text from the Washington G20 Summit while consideration continues about how best CARICOM should engage traditional allies in Europe and North America to attract some attention to this region's special needs.

In the absence of any statement from CARICOM as a "community of sovereign states" involved in foreign policy coordination, it is to be assumed that at least the secretariats of CARICOM and the OECS (Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States), as well as the Caribbean Development Bank, are quietly monitoring developments to guide the region's political directorate for collective action.

Right now, one initiative that seems to require urgent attention, as it relates in particular to the region's tourism-based economies, is a suggestion from the secretary-general of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), Francesco Frangialli, for governments to provide the tourism sector with credit to help stave off likely retrenchment.

As viewed by the UN official, whose assessment was given at the recent World Travel Market in London, small- and medium-sized hotels stand in greater danger of a deepening global financial crisis that will impact negatively on travellers from traditional major sources in Europe and North America.

Provision of credits by government, the UNWTO's director-general feels, could be a practical response to cushion the blow from the expected downturn in the tourism sector and thereby prevent job losses.

Since, according to UNWTO data, about 70 per cent of the Caribbean region's tourism business orignates from North America, then it is felt that major tourist economies, among them Barbados', may wish to signal their respective responses to the proposal for credit to hoteliers as made by Frangialli.

The Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO), which was involved in the World Travel Market, may have a response to offer on the idea of governments providing credits to help sustain hotels against falling victims to the current global financial crisis that's already seriously impacting on European and North American states.

Perhaps Minister of Tourism Richard Sealy could publicly share his thoughts on the suggestion offered by Frangialli.