These include but are not limited to government officials, businesspeople and foreign-language teachers from Dominica, St. Kitts and Nevis, Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Courses will take place in language training institutions located in Spanish and French-speaking ACS Member Countries.

"This represents the first phase of a future wider-scale ACS Language Training Project in English, French and Spanish, the development of which corresponds to the mandate stated in the Plan of Action adopted by the 3rd ACS Summit of Heads of State and/or Government, held on December 11-12, 2001 in Margarita Island, Venezuela," said ACS Secretary General Professor Norman Girvan. "In the Greater Caribbean, there is tremendous need for us to understand each other's languages and we are pleased to be taking this first, very significant step."

The Grant Agreement between the ACS, the CDB and the OECS, was signed on May 15, 2002 during the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the CDB in the Cayman Islands. It was signed by CDB President Compton Borne (seated second from right), ACS Secretary General Professor Norman Girvan (seated second from left) and OECS Director General George Goodwin (seated first from right). The Venezuelan government, which chairs the ACS Special Fund, the entity responsible for resource mobilisation, was also represented at the signing ceremony by Dr. Oscar Hernandez, Director General of Economic and International Cooperation (seated first from left), and Ambassador Alejandro Perera, Acting Director for Cooperation with the Caribbean and Central America (left standing). Projects and Resource Mobilization Adviser to the ACS Secretary General Jean-Yves Lacascade also attended the meeting.

He informed that as a result of the ACS Special Fund activity in resource mobilization, the CDB will act as a co-financing institution in this functional regional cooperation project, along with the Regional Councils of Guadeloupe and Martinique, the French Regional Cooperation Fund and the governments of Colombia, Cuba, Mexico and Venezuela.