UNCTAD15 Barbados Press Conference 07 October 2021

Good afternoon and welcome to this, the closing press conference of OCTAD 15, live here in Barbados and also live in Geneva.

Here in Barbados, we are joined by Prime Minister the Honourable Mia Amor Motley and she is accompanied by Miss Isabel Duron, Deputy Secretary General of OCTAD.

And over in Geneva we have Secretary General of UNCTAD, Rebecca Greenspan and she is accompanied by the Honourable Sandra Husbands, Minister in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of Barbados.

We're happy to be joined as well by local media and colleagues from around the globe.

Joining us via Zoom, first Prime Minister Motley will give remarks and that will be followed by Secretary General Greenspan.

Prime Minister Motley.

Thank you very much.

I just don't know what else to say.

We've said it all over the last four days, but this has been an example of what happens when we come together.

And last time I was in this room, I spoke about the importance of give and take, and that is fundamentally what is involved in being able to find progress across the global community.

If we do not come together and be able to determine those things that unite us while being committed to deal with addressing those things that deride us, we're not going to see meaningful progress.

And that is really fundamentally what the spirit of multilateralism is about.

We have seen over the course of the last year what happens when unilateral action predominates.

That has led to the DEBAC with vaccines, with very few countries being sufficiently vaccinated and the majority of the world still waiting, and through that has come the mutations and the variants that have caused great trouble.

I use that as a metaphor because it is going to be no different with the climate crisis.

Unless we come together to solve the world's problems, we are not going to be able to protect our people locally.

And, and I'm ever conscious of being able to address my own people here in Barbados and our own people in the Caribbean who may ask, what is all of this fancy language about?

We have, over the years been forced to take positions that have been foisted on us largely without our capacity to have input and to be able to respond or to nuance.

If we do not come to the table and be active partners, we will continue to be victims of the circumstances that we find ourselves in.

And we have come as a nation to say that we can no longer be innocent bystanders.

I can think of no better advice on this point than that offered by a Barbadian who distinguished herself with courage.

And I refer to Shirley Chisholm, who reminded us as she became the first African American woman to become a congresswoman in the United States of America, and the first woman and African and black, to run for a major political party in a presidential race.

She reminded us that we very often have to bring our own folding chair to the table.

Barbados today has not brought a folding chair, but we came prepared to take the chair because we have for our people to adapt to circumstances that are too close for us to even think and pause.

In 13 years, this country's labour force will be smaller than it is now.

We have a responsibility to avert that national crisis.

Equally, in 1312 to 13 years, it is anticipated that the world will reach 1.5°.

I've already commented on the unusual weather patterns, including the fact that we are more and more seeing afternoon showers as a result of excessive heat.

We've seen what it is to have the ***** storms and Hurricane Elsa.

We already know what it is to have a drought and a groundwater crisis, but I could take the word out, the word Barbados out from what I just said, and put in any other country between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.

And on top of all of this comes the unfortunate issue of debt, because we have had to increase debt, all of us.

In our own case, had we not completed our domestic and international debt restructuring, I simply do not know where we would be.

But the rest of the developing world continues to be confronted by choking death and rules that don't make sense, particularly as they have to find a way to service their people.

Secretary General Guterres in this room said it best, and there's no reason to deviate from it.

We will either service our debt or service our people.

So, my friends, this is just but one other chapter in the race in the book that we are mounting to be able to save our people from what potentially are some of the worst challenges humanity has ever had to face.

We hope that we have done our simple bit in advancing progress.

And in addition to what we have done at UNCTAD, I served notice at the United Nations General Assembly that we will be introducing a resolution in plenary to be able to adopt the common agenda and to be able to adopt the necessary actions and approaches to bridge the six critical problems that the Secretary General has identified consistently that is facing our world.

So do not see this as a single action, but see it as a critical step in the directions that we must go.

I want to thank once again, Secretary General Greenspan, Deputy Secretary General Durant and all of the others for working with us.

I've already said on record that I also want to thank the national coordinators, Ambassador Marshall from Barbados and Isabel Valentini from Geneva.

But I also want to add that our master, Chad Blackman has also been, along with Minister Jerome Walcott and Minister Sandra Husbands, part of the key political team that would have helped us do all that we have done over the course of the last two years.

This has not been an easy journey, particularly during the pandemic.

But like we've known all our lives, with every cloud comes a silver lining.

We have distinguished ourselves through not only the work and policy that we've done, but our ability to mount a virtual platform between Barbados and Geneva, anchored by Sharon Marshall so professionally here and by Peter, I forgot Peter's last name, Okwachi in in Geneva, making it seem as though it was seamless and effortless.

And as Secretary General Greenspan reminded us, we could have easily been in two rooms here in this conference centre.

So seamless was the activity of this conference.

So thank you very much, Madam Chair and I remain available for any questions that may be asked.

Thank you.

Thank you, Prime Minister, and I now call on Secretary General Greenspan, who is in Geneva.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And again, Prime Minister Motley, our recognition for the great work that Barbados has done, your great leadership.

You were talking today about leadership and courage.

This is what we see in you.

Thank you so much for your leadership, for all the team, for the hard work in Barbados and in Geneva, and also to the whole team of Ankh that really our recognition of the work done.

I think that this is a historical conference because of several things, because of the moment we are in that is so important, that is a a so, so definitory of the trajectory the world will take in the future.

We have seen throughout the conference, we have heard the Secretary general of the of the UN, we have heard the Prime Minister of Barbados, Miyamati, we have heard the president of Kenya, and we have all said how important is to close the gaps that the world is showing in this pandemic.

They are not new, but they have deepened with the pandemic.

And we know that the inequalities that are rampant in the world.

And I say inequalities because it's not one.

There are many and they interact and intersect between them and the weakened We we the the weak response from the multilateral arena.

If we weaken multilateralism, we won't be able to find the collective will and action.

We need to face the problems of today that are global problems and have to be addressed globally.

So this is an important moment in the in the history of humanity and we need to rise to the challenge.

The second reason why this is historic is because it's the first time not only that we do this conference in a hybrid format, but in a small development developing state.

A small island developing state and a Barbados has brought to the table to the discussion the vulnerabilities, the fragility of all the seeds of the small island developing states.

And we have to take that call seriously because it's true what they have been telling us.

They have been telling us that is not because of bad behaviour that they are in the situation they are in, is not because they decided to take debt above their means.

No, they are indebted because also of the things that others have done and because of climate change, because of natural disasters, because of the investment in resilience that they have to do and take those that has taken resources away from other needs, from the needs of the Today citizens, from education and from health and from social protection.

So we need to hear the voice of the countries in the world that are having to devote a lot of resources to things that are coming from outside to re rising seas or to the pandemic.

So it's not bad behaviour.

They don't they don't have to be punished.

They have to be helped.

And I think that that is the difference, you know, the different voice that we are hearing in this conference.

The third reason why this conference has been historic is because I think that is really the first time, and I think that you said it, Prime Minister Motley, but let me repeat the first time, that the president of the conference is a woman, that the chair of the board is a woman, that the secretary general of ANTA is a woman.

So it's really a symbol of the changing times.

In 1964, when this organisation was born, they all were men.

So something has changed in the world and we have to say change is possible.

And that's why we take this task with such an impetus and passion, because we know we can change the world, we know that we can change reality.

And we have to believe then that we can bring the voices, the consensus, the action, the policies that will make that possible.

And a, the third reason why this is a historic conference is because we were so successful, because it's the first conference on trade and development and economic issues.

And the very central issues that we are facing today is the first, the first conference post COVID, although there is no post, we are still in COVID, but we are also thinking about the world post COVID.

And I think that that's why we had more than 100 direct addresses from countries in the conference, more than 100 participations from the countries that formed the membership of the UN.

We had 5300 delegates in, in public participating with us.

We have, we had 1500 people participating in the forest before we came to the conference in youth, in gender and development, in the cultural and creative industries, with civil society.

So we have to take their word, their words very seriously within our future work.

And we had the Secretary General of the UN that came to Barbados to put his voice together with ours in the importance of trade and development, in the importance of making this right for the future.

And four, to go from inequalities and vulnerabilities to prosperity for all.

That is what this conference is about.

So all of those makes this conference a historical moment.

And I think that we have met with the will and the effort of all the membership of ANTA to come together to agree on a text on the Bridge Town Covenant that will guide our work in the future to strengthen multilateralism, to revitalise ANTAT and to build this international consensus to close the gaps that are dividing us.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Secretary General Greenspan.

Ladies and gentlemen of the media, the floor is now open and we will begin by taking a question from the local media here in Barbados.

Can you just hold while the mic is brought for you?

Hi, good afternoon.

Prime Minister and Deputy General Secretary and everyone here, basically what I'm trying to ascertain, we've had the talk, the the discussions and the planning the Bridgestone Covenant as President, Madam Prime Minister of of on that for the next four years.

What's the plan of action to ensure that there's continuity in what was discussed and and agreed upon in this last four days?

Thank you very much, Caldwell, for that question.

I would have indicated when we met in here three days ago that the first thing we would be doing having 341, we hope to be on trade logistics, which will deal with transport costs and the difficulties that we're experiencing now globally.

You write stories all the time about the cost of living, the whole expensive food is, but we need you to write stories too that show that there's a shortage of containers, that people have to pay a premium just to be able to book a shipping date and to reserve a container even before you pay for the shipping costs.

We need to deconstruct and reconstruct all these things and see whether there's a more efficient and effective way of doing it.

So that's the Trade Logistics 1.

After that, we hope, and it's three years.

We're not going for the four because we want to keep dad in 2024 to celebrate its 60th birthday.

And I appreciate that because if it was the next year, it would be me celebrating May 60th.

So the second one would be on investment second or third, we'll work out the order, but there will be another one on investment first for sure.

It's trade logistics.

The second one will be on investment potentially and the third one on creative industries.

We know that the Caribbean more than anything else is loaded with creativity.

And if we are going to, as a small region in the world get a return from it, we have to be able to tell our stories in the multiple formats that can earn for us.

And we had wonderful work done in the Creative Industries Trade Digitization Forum led by Doctor Anna Lee Babb and Mr Adrian Green right here locally, but dealing with persons right across.

But that's the meetings.

Separate from that, I would have put on the table today and yesterday a number of key things.

One, that most of the trade in the world today is not in fact through airports and seaports, but through the Internet port.

And what we've seen effectively is the privatisation of of privatisation of trade in, in perhaps the greatest privatisation and trade in the modern world.

And there's a private oligopoly that literally is controlling this.

But there are no rules, there are no regulations.

So just as the D20 countries are trying to deal with them by way of taxation, the reality is that we need to ensure that there's fairness and that persons controlling the algorithms are not doing things that you and I don't understand and don't know what the consequences will be.

Secondly, we need, as I said, and we will continue to fight through Ontad to work for research work and that has been that entity that has done marvellous research work over the years.

You've heard Secretary General Greenspan talk about the fact that the 0.7% of ODA has come from there.

The whole recognition of LDCs came from Ontad.

They've done significant work over the years and we need them to do some work again for the developing world.

We need them one to look at how we can deconstruct and reconstruct safe assets to ensure that the disparity in borrowing costs between the developing world and the developed world can be removed.

So to break that down, why does Ghana and Greece, why do Ghana and Greece have the same credit rating but Ghana borrowers at a much higher rate of interest than Greece?

Largely because of Greece being in the European Union with the safe assets that are considered part and parcel of the reserve such that persons can reduce the risk and then they put a higher risk on the rest of us who don't have those safe assets.

The second other thing is, relates to the is to looking at whether we can remove the rigidity that the macro economists have had with the whole question of debt to GDP ratios being at 60% and wait, there's no way we can hold that while having to do what we have to do to adapt to a world that may go beyond 1.5°.

And that's why we're asking, as the Secretary General has asked, for there to be a commitment of 50% of the adaptation funds, 50% of the 100 billion, sorry, to be for adaptation.

And similarly for us to recognise to, as we have asked that it's no sense giving countries money if they don't have the fiscal space to spend it.

You just frustrate people because it's across the road and I can't touch it.

So how are we going to create the fiscal space?

And in many instances, it may need to be grant funds as well.

Because as we've said, as a matter of justice and morality, we did not create the climate crisis, but we are on the front end of receiving it.

So it's my like, it's like me going into your yard, dirtying up your yard and then telling you you have to pay for what I did to dirty up your yard.

And all of a sudden you can't buy food, you can't pay a mortgage because you've got to pay the dirtier to clean up the yard.

We also want to see work promoting a global clearing house for vaccines, but also for other global public goods that may come the the inequity and the disparity between who could access vaccines.

They had money, you're not asking about it for money, but you could not get it.

And others, by the same token, being able to commandeer five times what they need for their population, something UMTAD was not formed to be able to conspire against developing countries in that way.

And therefore we believe UMTAD can help us with the advocacy to ensure that there's far greater equity accessing global public goods.

And the last thing that I think I raised was the question of we talk about food security, which is good, but cheap food sometimes as we know is bad fear and cheap food will mean chronic NCDS, which we know now with COVID is the worst thing because they tell us about comorbidities.

So what we need to move to now is nutrition security.

So it's not decibel feeding people, but feeding people in a nutritious way that allows them to remain healthy, but at the same time getting people to understand that they have a responsibility in the battle too.

And it's not just about us as well.

So those are some of the things and I hope that if we can achieve half of them in the next three years, then I think we would have done exceptionally well.

And I'm confident with the team that is the leadership of UNCTAD and with our commitment here that we will remain engaged to be able to report progress in three years time on the 60th anniversary.

Thank you.

Thank you, Prime Minister.

We go now to our global media and we will have a question from Alicia Nunez.

We ask Miss Nunez that you put your camera on and introduce yourself.

Please remember to unmute as well.

Hi everyone, thank you very much.

My name is.

Mr Yes, Mr.

Alessi.

Thank you.

My name is Alessi Nunes.

I'm from CICO.

Press here from I'm here in Tokyo.

And my my.

Question because one of the talk was about the quote the terrible cost of inequality.

This is very strong sentence and I'm Brazilian.

Living here in Tokyo, and I know that in Brazil we have.

This now exactly now.

About it's.

Happening now this inequality.

Related to many things, but this fragility impacts children.

And young people and.

We need to.

Talk about that and naturally impacts education.

So my question is now big picture, how can we bring this proposals that we heard all these days and the.

Urgent action needed for the.

SCD, DS and sustainable development goals.

And everything we heard.

Close to the daily lives of ordinary people, mainly from the.

These these countries especially.

The youth so.

That's my question.

For now I'm.

Not sure I understand the question, but is it that how we how all of these things are going to affect our young people?

Yeah.

OK, I see a nod if that is the case.

You're absolutely correct, Sir.

And I want to thank you for that question because what it does is to cause me to remember to speak about the fact that 73% of our young people across the world became unemployed during this pandemic.

Let's put it in simple terms.

That's almost three out of every four young people becoming unemployed at the same time that we've seen 117 million people go back into poverty, according to the ILO last year.

And on top of that, I've already spoken to the digital divide that has been the offspring of this pandemic by ensuring that those children who could not get to school and who do not have access to either electricity or digital tablets or digital content have remained on the sidelines of life for the last 20 months.

This is an unacceptable situation, and I think we all agree that we have to work hard to be able to remove it.

I've already called on members of the global community to us to approach the five major tech firms.

They have a market capitalization of $9.3 trillion.

It is immoral for children to be without access to affordable rugged tablets to learn.

While we continue to enrich a small handful of companies, I hope that we can build a global coalition to work with us to be able to identify the manufacturing of a tablet that should cost no more than 40 or fifty U.S.

dollars and that needs to last for about 3 to 4 years without the software obsolescence that is built into these phones and these tablets in order to make us buy one every year.

So I trust and pray that we can see some progress on this matter.

And this is part of the spirit that has come out of the spirit of Spikestone and the Bridgestone Covenant.

These are the tangible things that we want to see that will make a difference in the lives of ordinary people and if we can get the trade and investment that we so desperately need to reverse the fact that three out of every four young people across the globe are unemployed during the course of this pandemic.

Thank you.

Secretary General Greenspan, would you like to respond to that question as well?

To to I first of all say that I completely agree with the Prime Minister Motley, but I would like to add two things, maybe if you allow me.

One is that trade effects us all.

It affects what you buy and it affects what you produce.

It will affect also the conditions in which the young people can compete and have startups and bring their ideas.

And something that we did with the leadership of a, a Prime Minister motley in, in Barbados that we spoke to them.

And trade has to be an instrument for them to be able to succeed for the small and medium sized enterprises, for the startups to network, to go to the world.

But because of the lack of competitiveness and, and monopolies in the world, like has been said before, you know, it's very difficult to enter there.

And part of what we want to do is really to set up the stage for them to be able to succeed, to be at the table of the trade negotiations because it affects their life.

It affects what you do every day, what you buy and what you sell and trade is that something like is the like esoteric is something very tangible, what you eat and what you what you do.

So it's very important that our focus and, and the whole conference is that link between trade and development.

My second point is about debt and allowing for the fiscal space to do what we have to do.

And one of the things now that is wearing us the most, together with the unemployment of the young is the educational gaps that this pandemic has deepened so badly.

Yes, because the world has been divided because of the technological technology access has been divided.

And between the ones that went to school and were able to study and the ones that one didn't go to school and they were not able to study.

And one of the my main worries, and I am saying this because we had the experience in the 80s with the debt crisis in Latin America.

We lost a generation because kids went out of school.

And that will happen again when we will open the schools.

Many of the kids won't go to study again because their families have gone again into extreme poverty, 120 million people around the world.

And the girls will stay at home.

If the mums go, mums will have to go to work and the boys will go to work because they need more income in the house.

And we know that that happens and it will happen more because many of them have been out to school almost a year.

And that is happening to, to to boys and girls at school.

And we know that girls will suffer more and it's happening at **** school.

So we, we will lose that generation because they won't have the skills, they won't be able to go into the main, you know, current of development.

And we have to make to, to, to preclude that.

We have to, we, we cannot accept that happening.

So we need the physical space to again, invest in health, in education, in social protection.

But we don't have that space if our debt has gone ****, rocketing, if the interest rates are going up and if our income is going down because like, like, like Barbados has told us all these days, you know, you derive a lot of your taxes and income, the public income from tourism and tourism has stopped for one year in this is recovering very slowly.

So income is going down, expenditures are going up.

And we don't have the financial resources to have this, the fiscal space to make the investment we need to make in youth, in education, in health.

And those are very concrete things.

So what we are trying to do this is to not only make this problem visible but to go and propose very specific solutions for it.

And there is the four points agenda to face the challenge of the dead that the Secretary General Guterres put on the table.

We have been working very hard on that too, and we hope that through those kind of global, because this has to be global, global proposals, we will be able to make the fiscal space for that not to happen.

So that affects the daily lives and the future of millions of young people and children around the world.

General Greenspan, do we have another question from our global media?

OK, So I give the opportunity then to if there's another question from the floor here in Barbados.

Does anyone else have a question that means that everything was so thoroughly covered by Prime Minister Motley and Secretary General?

Just would like to to to thank.

Mr.

Prime Minister Motley, because?

Her.

Courage and the courage.

Maybe that the people living in this small island states this courage against adversity, different types of adversity.

That she described very well is also.

A way to create.

A hope to create project.

And you have heard.

A lot of.

Project that we will try to do together.

In the next.

Three years.

And I think that for this.

Courage.

It's really, really contagious and it helps in the conference to find this agreement for the covenants, an agreement for the political declaration.

For what we have to do so for this.

Courage of the Barbadian people, thank you.

Thank you very much, Miss Durand.

Durand, I'm sorry, so thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen of the media, both in Barbados and around the world.

Thank you very much.

Prime Minister Motley, Secretary General Greenspan, Minister Husbands and Deputy Secretary General Duron.

Ladies and gentlemen, this brings us to the end of our final event for Octad 15.

Do enjoy the rest of your afternoon.