The sixteenth meeting of the Caribbean Commission was opened in Paramaribo, Surinam, on May 11, 1953; the principal items on the agenda concerned recommendations made by the Fifth West Indian Conference. The Commission endorsed the recommendations of the Preparatory Committee for the Joint Conference on Education and Small-Scale Farming, to be sponsored jointly by the Commission and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization; the Preparatory Committee had recommended that a Single conference be held on the two subjects, that these questions be viewed from the point of view of their contribution to community and economic development, that each government in the area be invited to send two delegates, and that the conference be held in Trinidad in October 1954. The Commission agreed to the preparation of a number of research and problem papers for the conference, emphasizing the desirability of obtaining the assistance of UNESCO, the United States Technical Cooperation Administration, and member governments in preparing them. Plans for the conference were coordinated with those of the Sixth West Indian Conference, a principal item on whose agenda was to be the report of the conference on education and small scale farming.