Shareholder country discussions have been continuing within the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), 11-member district grouping, on a wide assortment of initiatives proposed to advance integration within the region and to boost the general wellbeing of citizens in numerous areas of life.
One of the initiatives being discussed is the formation of an OECS ID, a digital identification scheme that will use biometrics and assemble personal information from all the diverse types of government-issued IDs to produce an individualized ID number for every citizen, according to a press release.
Stakeholders say such an ID would be a large step forward toward unblocking travel blockades within the sub-region and is a decision taken by heads of state and management of OECS in 2011 to facilitate hassle-free travel by guaranteeing OECS citizens can travel within the Eastern Caribbean Economic Union (ECEU) with a legal government-issued picture ID as a driver’s license, national identification card, or voter card.
The leaders initially agreed on the common acknowledgment of driver’s licenses in 2011, which indicates that OECS citizens can drive inside any ECEU member state using a valid driver’s license supplied by their home country.
At the close of last year, the country consultation missions, fronted by the OECS Directive, were in Antigua and Barbuda, the Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
The exercise, which is anticipated to be completed this month, will among other things, endorse national action aimed at supporting the full execution of the free movement of individuals regime.
Regional leaders trust an easy travel rule for the region will render many other events easier together with labour migration, social security assistance portability, admission to education and healthcare, social growth, intra-regional transport, intra-regional trade, national boundary security, and entree to digital services and consumer safety.
These shareholder engagements will help guide the national actions that can be encouraged in the instant and medium term to deliver on these reliant rights benefits, says Dr. Didacus Jules, director general of the OECS. This comprises efforts to promote the Contingent Rights Model Bill and the expansion of administrative tools that can help make the free movement of individual regimes a more available reality for ECEU citizens.
There are regional ID card initiatives in other parts of the world such as the ECOWAS National Biometric ID Card (ENBIC) in West Africa with intentions to remove travel hurdles connected to identity, as well as to drive up the level of economic and social integration between the 15 associate countries of the regional bloc.
