By K. NANCOO-RUSSELL

Freeport News Reporter

Despite the perception by some that the positions of President and Governor-General are essentially ceremonial, such heads of state are well-placed to advance both national and regional dialogue on many important issues, said Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham during his remarks at the opening ceremony of the 13th Annual Conference of Presidents and Governors-General of the Caribbean Community in New Providence yesterday.

It is therefore appropriate that such officials meet in a setting "designed to promote sustained, open dialogue and discussion on a myriad challenges that face our societies," Ingraham said.

The conference is taking place at the Wyndham Nassau Resort & Crystal Palace Casino from October 6-9 under the theme "Rebuilding Societies" and representatives from 10 countries are participating; the Presidents of Dominica and Trinidad & Tobago and the Governors General of Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Gre-nada, Jamaica, St. Christopher and Nevis, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

The sessions held throughout the conference, which will address such challenges, will no doubt help to devise sensible means of addressing and overcoming them, he furthered.

Although The Bahamas, along with Barbados and Bermuda, boasts of having one of the oldest parliaments in the world, Ingraham said the issues facing many countries in the region are significant.

"This is a time of considerable international financial upheaval and economic uncertainty. None of us can ignore the potential serious social and economic consequences that loom for our countries if good order is not restored quickly to the North American economy and indeed to that of Europe and of Asia," he said.

"Notwithstanding that we are exercising some of the best minds in our countries to develop comprehensive re-sponses to regional and na-tional crime problems and diverting unprecedented proportions of national budgets to crime prevention and control, crime continues to challenge our law enforcement agencies, distort our social fabric, and strain our judicial systems."

Health demands including combating the spread of HIV/AIDS and educating against debilitating non-communicable diseases also pose a serious problem, he added.

Having recently returned from High Level Event convened by the Secretary Gen-eral of the United Nations in New York, the purpose of which was to evaluate pro-gress made toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals ascribed to by world governments in 2000, the Prime Minister said he was pleased to report to the U.N. that, though additional progress is still to be had, The Bahamas has passed the thresholds set in the eight defined Millennium Goals.

"Those goals include eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality and empowerment of women, reducing infant mortality and improving maternal health care,

combating the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability and creating a global partnership for development," he explained.

"What is critically important for our countries today and going forward is the imperative that we meet and maintain goals set and build on these so as to improve our standards."

In 2004, the U.N. Secretary General assembled a high-level panel to assess the threats and challenges to progress in the world, Ingra-ham explained. The panel's report, entitled, "A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility" identified six clusters of threats.

Two of those six threats, he said, "speak directly to some of the issues that I have referred to this morning; firstly, poverty, infectious disease and environmental degradation; and secondly transnational organized crime."

"I note that your session topics closely dovetail with these leading concerns of the international community and of our regional governments. Your conference coordinators are to be commended for concentrating your attention to matters of such great relevance to our people," he said.

"It is my hope that this, your 13th Annual Meeting, will more than meet your individual expectations, and that all of us in the region will be the beneficiaries of your deliberations."

Before closing, the Prime Minister extended congratulations to the Governor-General of Jamaica, Sir Kenneth Hall, and the President of Trinidad and Tobago Professor George Richards, and to the governments and citizens of those countries, on the performance of their athletes at the 2008 Olympiad in Beijing.