BRIDGETOWN, Barbados - Secretary General of the Caribbean Community, Edwin Carrington, says he is "satisfied with progress made" at Tuesday's special meeting of Caricom Heads of Government, including efforts to establish a Regional Development Fund (RDF). Speaking with the Observer yesterday before participating in the Second Caricom-Cuba Summit at the Barbados Hotel, Carrington said that there was "a sense of urgency" to press ahead with the Fund. Noting that the RDF was "quite integral", especially for the disadvantaged economies of Caricom in the functioning of the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME), Carrington said that the Community leaders would now await the outcome of next week's meeting of finance ministers in Jamaica. That meeting, which is scheduled for next Monday, and is to be hosted by Jamaica's finance minister Dr Omar Davies, will come to grips with issues such as the size, funding and lending criteria for the RDF. A number of Caricom Heads of Government, who are also finance ministers, plan to attend the meeting; among them Prime Minister Owen Arthur of Barbados, who has lead responsibility for CSME-readiness arrangements and Prime Minister Patrick Manning of Trinidad and Tobago. Proposals for the initial size of the Fund vary from US$50 million to US$120 million, with suggestions for mobilising financial resources from Caricom governments, the region's private sector and extra-regional donor agencies and institutions. Following next Monday's meeting of finance ministers, plans for the inauguration of the Fund will be forwarded to Heads of Government in preparation for their first Inter-Sessional for 2006, scheduled to be held in Port-of-Spain from February 9 to10. That meeting of Caricom Heads of Government will follow the operationalisation of the single market component of the CSME scheduled for January 1, 2006, with at least four countries on board - Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines are also hoping to be ready for the historic occasion. Tuesday's special meeting of Caricom leaders also approved participation by the Community in a proposed fact-finding mission to Haiti by the African Union. Originally intended to take place a week before Christmas, the AU-Caricom, which is to assess Haiti's readiness with arrangements to ensure free and fair elections, will take place next month, now that there has been a further postponement of the parliamentary and presidential polls that were scheduled for January 8, with a February 15 run-off. Reprinted from jamaicaobserver.com