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Diplomats training workshop gets underway
A two-week regional diplomatic training programme for mid-career diplomats in the Caribbean Community kicked off yesterday at Roraima Duke Lodge, Kingston, Georgetown.
The workshop is being held under the theme, “Preparing for the Future.”
Some of the diplomats during the workshop yesterday.
The aim of the training program is to enhance skills of the participants in the conduct of diplomacy.
Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Dr. Edwin Carrington, said that the training programme responds to a mandate of the CARICOM Ministers of Foreign Affairs, which was first implemented in 1987.
It is a collaborative effort of the CARICOM Secretariat, the Institute of International Relations (IIR) of the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus and the Commonwealth Secretariat.
Over the next two weeks, the workshop will be addressing the challenges faced by the states and ultimately the Region that the participants represent with a view to enabling joint strategizing on the best means of coordinating and executing agreed regional policies.
This, Dr Carrington said, will allow the Caribbean Community to safeguard and promote its common interests and lift one unified voice above the din of those of other countries and regions.
“Young diplomats, you have the fortune to be walking in the footsteps of and indeed will interact with some of the most eminent CARICOM diplomats who, since the founding of our Community, have defended and promoted the interests of this vulnerable seascape and landscape that we call our Caribbean home.
“There is a rich history of successful CARICOM diplomacy which illustrates the fact that size has no relation to skill,” the Secretary General said.
He explained that it was the Caribbean diplomats who were at the forefront of the historic signature of the Georgetown Accord that established the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP). He said that they helped to spearhead the conclusion of the historic Lomé Conventions, which created the most advanced trade and development relationship of its time between former colonies and colonial powers.
The Cotonou and Economic Partnership Agreements succeeded these Conventions.
He noted that Caribbean diplomats played an active role as any in the struggle against regimes that shamed the collective humanity in Southern Africa.
He encouraged the participants to be skilled in crafting and implementing negotiation strategies that will defend the short, medium and long-term interests of the people of the Region.
Meanwhile, the diplomats were also reminded that during the course of their careers, successful advocacy and networking is important as they seek to champion the various causes for their individual countries and the Region.
Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies (UWI), Professor Nigel Harris, a Guyanese, told the regional diplomats that advocacy for the Caribbean in terms of programmes, development, industries and its people would form a major part of their work.
“You also have to keep your ears to the ground for opportunities to promote the Region, or for opportunities that may be advantageous to the Region in various ways – trade, politics, culture, educational opportunities.”
He said that the UWI, through the graduate programmes offered at the Institute of International Relations and the undergraduate programmes in International Relations offered through the Faculties of Social Sciences, has been preparing the “ground-work” for their representational corps.
He added that they would also need to equip themselves with “soft skills” such as socialising and networking. He said that they would find that such skills were always important in the diplomatic arena.
He added that networking could be one of the most important skills and strategies that a diplomat could employ to ensure success.
He reminded the diplomats that in these stressful economic times the Caribbean had to do some skilful navigation in the international arena and they would be pressed into action in the work of the Region.
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