Barbados PM Calls for United Front to Tackle the Pandemic

Mia Mottley

The guest speaker at the Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s AGM on Thursday night was Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Amore Mottley. PM Mottley spoke on the challenges of COVID-19 – how it has shown to be the ultimate test of Caribbean nation’s development and capacity to respond.  Mottley called on the business community in Belize to play an active role in the country’s recovery. She pointed out that while the pandemic has led to unemployment and revenue losses, which have led to a stop in global economic activity, the country must not neglect the other global challenges, such as climate change which continues to define the way we live. Here’s a snippet of the speech from PM Mottley to the members of the B.C.C.I.

Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados

“When we do recovery differently, when we use it to prepare to head off the next crisis, then we are not constantly caught in that cycle of prosperity – shock – recovery that has so come to characterized Caribbean development.  My friends, recovery, therefore is not just about overcoming in order to return to the status quo and COVID more than anything else has shown us that. COVID has shown us the value of family; the value of relationships; the value of work; the value of community; the value of regional integration and the value of our environment. We need to keep it uppermost in our head. We cannot simply return to the status quo and as we seek to revitalize everything as we go about to look at the natural resources that we have and the opportunities for innovation that can be created. Let us remember how COVID has reminded us to value those things that ultimately matter to human beings. While we call on the international community, as we must, to reframe vulnerability beyond simply historic GDP measurements to allow us to better mobilize access for concessionary financing or to stop using other forms of criteria and definitions that bear no relationships to our real vulnerability and to the risk that we face, while we do all of this we seek also to continue to maintain those things that mattered to us before COVID; to meet targets for lower global temperatures is an obligation, an imperative from which we cannot resile because this mean the difference between the kind of life and in some instances life for our citizens. This is still our reality despite of the intervention of the COVID pandemic. We are not waiting for the world to determine our development path. My friends, I ask us, that as we do all of these things we have a duty to stabilize our economy because it does take cash to care. We also have a duty to work together in the region and we know we are always stronger together. We in the Caribbean have always been the architects of our destiny and there is no better time than to strengthen that resolve.”