PM: Antigua and Barbuda making a big impact on the world stage

Antigua and Barbuda is attracting much respect and attention on the international
stage largely due to the positions adopted by the government led by Prime Minister
Gaston Browne.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Point Express newspaper, PM Browne
said this growing respect is manifested by the fact that Antigua and Barbuda was
selected to host next year’s Small Islands Developing States (SIDS) conference
which will attract as many as five thousand attendees.
“Antigua and Barbuda is punching above its weight. This international conference
of SIDS next year that we are hosting was being pursued by other small states, yet
we are the ones who got it. I don’t wish to boast, but it is Antigua and Barbuda that
the United Nations is looking towards in order to champion many causes. Even as
far as the new global eye care initiative,” he revealed.
The prime minister noted that Antigua and Barbuda has also been at the forefront
of the ‘loss and damage’ campaign that he first raised at COP 26 in Scotland and
again at COP 27 in Egypt. Unfortunately, according to PM Browne some sections
of the media have been singling out another Caribbean state for leadership in this
campaign when it was Antigua and Barbuda that has been at the helm from the
start.
As one of the senior prime ministers in CARICOM, PM Browne said he has led an
administration that has done an ‘enormous’ amount of work on the international
scene. Including, he noted, negotiating with the international financial community
on the issue of de-risking and the threat it posed to the region’s banking system, as
many international banks threatened to withdraw their corresponding banking
relations with banks in the Caribbean.
The prime minister confirmed that he has been receiving regular invitations from
other governments and international institutions to address them on several issues
of concern from climate change, to challenges facing small states to the recent
efforts to help create and promote the Multi-Dimensional Vulnerability Index
(MVI), which he co-chaired and helped to present at a meeting of the World Bank
and the International Monetary Fund held last week in Morocco.