A Joint Declaration on Digital Alliance at the EU CELAC Summit

Mia Mottley

Over the weekend, Prime Minister John Briceño travelled to Brussels, Belgium to attend the European Union – Community of Latin American and Caribbean States Summit 2023. The two-day event saw heads of state and government convene for the first time in eight years. Coming out of the summit was a joint declaration on digital alliance, which was among the many issues discussed. During day two, Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley, in a speech, said that institutional reformation is needed for funding the climate crisis, preparation for pandemic and the consequences of war and fragility, as well as food and water insecurity and digital divide. Prime Minister Mottley went on to say that something is fundamentally wrong with the global decision-making processes. Here’s an excerpt from her speech.

Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados

“The climate crisis is upon us in ways that we all accept, but yet we are not seen to act with the laser focus that is required if we are going to be equal to the moment and equal to the time. The reality is that we need to be able to understand that the task of saving both people and planet are equal and that we are not a one issue civilization. We have come to this point without adequately preparing ourselves to bring along our people and without adequately acting to save the planet, in spite of having access to the knowledge for the last century. We are rushing now to be able to act. The difficulty is that our actions require changes in access to money, changes in access to rules and changes in our philosophy. An imperialistic framework in the structure of international organizations is not going to bring about the solutions in a moral and strategic way necessary to save the planet. And we are seeing the examples of that expressed throughout all that we do. Similarly, we are not in a position to secure the global public goods that are necessary. The pandemic floored almost every one of our nations and in spite of the fact that we have that recent example; we are not mobilizing the capital necessary to avoid the next pandemic or indeed to fight the slow motion silent pandemic of antimicrobial resistance. The reform of our international financial institutions is critical if our countries are able to summon not just the will, but the capacity to be able to prepare themselves to become more resilient.”