The Caribbean states have long acknowledged that no single government is capable of independently addressing the region's intricate and interconnected security threats. Transnational organized crime, which encompasses drug, arms, and human trafficking; cyber-enabled crime; money laundering and other financial crimes; and terrorism, continues to utilize porous borders, maritime spaces, and governance gaps. Simultaneously, the destabilizing effects of irregular migration, pandemics, and climate-related disasters are increasingly intersecting with crime and violence, thereby exacerbating the strained security institutions of the member states of the Regional Security System. As a result, the planned symposium is made to address these opportunities and pressing needs. The symposium will involve keynotes, open-table discussions, and workshop sessions over the course of two days. It will bring together regional and international experts, senior practitioners, and policymakers to collaborate on the development of realistic roadmaps and implementable solutions to enhance Caribbean security governance over the next decade. The symposium endeavors to address the persistent disparity between research, practice, and policy in regional security by grounding debates in empirical findings and practitioner experience. In doing so, it will contribute to a Caribbean security architecture that is more coherent, responsive, and future-oriented and that better protects citizens, safeguards democratic institutions, and supports regional security goals. 

The primary goals are to enhance the efficacy of the current governance structures in the Caribbean region to confront current and future security challenges. The event will synthesize the policy experience of the past years by the RSS, the empirical scholarship findings, and the views of practitioners and experts brought together in one space. The event will facilitate the identification of proposed solutions to strategic gaps in regional security, as well as the promotion of evidence-based recommendations for institutional strengthening and effective coordination. In addition, it will provide an opportunity to enhance the capacity of Caribbean security professionals, encourage policy-relevant Caribbean-led scholarship, establish research networks that connect academics, practitioners, and policymakers, and enhance institutional and governmental responsiveness to contemporary security challenges. 

The symposium is explicitly intended to produce tangible results that can be directly incorporated into the agenda-setting processes, institutional reform, and national and regional policymaking. The following outputs will be produced for each theme discussed during the Symposium: