Geneva, 29 March 2022 (TDI): Mia Amor Mottley, the Prime Minister of Barbados, addressed an audience at the inaugural event of the WTO’s Presidential Lecture Series on 23 March at the WTO headquarters in Geneva.

Swiss officials, delegates from several IGOs, representatives of NGOs, WTO ambassadors, and people from business and academics participated in the event.

According to the Director-General of WTO, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the purpose of the World Trade Organization’s Presidential Lecture Series is to shed light on potential ways forward, toward the WTO’s founding goals of raising people’s living standards, creating jobs, and promoting sustainable development in the wake of threats to Multi-lateral institutions and values.

The Address

Addressing the audience, the Prime Minister brought attention to the failures of the old global system. She highlighted issues such as global debt, rapid climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the recent conflict in Ukraine.

She said, “The global order is not working; it is not delivering in the areas of critical importance necessary to achieve the goal of sustainable development for the majority of the world’s population.

Moreover, she outlined problems faced by businesses of small island nations such as hers. These obstacles include digital gaps, a shortage of supporting financing mechanisms, and discriminatory standards.

“These, not tariffs, not genuine competitiveness and comparative advantages, are the obstacles to today’s international trade.

They will be an obstacle too to the efficient and fair prosecution of climate mitigation through the global transfer of capital, technology, and opportunity,” she proclaimed.

The Prime Minister concluded by expressing that the new global order needs a “next-generation WTO, committed to calling out obstacles to equitable trade, committed to being even more representative, acting as a countervailing, reforming force against the tendency to narrow, exclusive trade relationships, with a seat at the highest tables to promote the international trade dimension to the world’s problems.”

Barbados

Barbados became the latest country to replace the Constitutional Monarchy with a Republic in November 2021. Previously, Queen Elizabeth II served as the island’s Queen and the Head-of-State, represented by a Governor-General. The country is a member of the Caribbean Community.

After the Barbadian move, calls for becoming a republic increased in other Caribbean Commonwealth Realms such as Jamaica, Bahamas, and Belize, where the British Monarch is still the Head of State. British royals, Prince William and Princess Kate recently toured the region.

 

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