Back

Small States & Great Power Relations: How do Caribbean SIDs Secure their Interests?

June 17, 2021
Related topics: 
International Relations

The Policy Center for the New South, in partnership with the Brussels Diplomatic Academy, will host a webinar under the theme “Small States & Great Power Relations: How do Caribbean SIDs Secure their Interests?”, scheduled on Thursday, June 17th, 2021 at 2pm Rabat time/ 3pm Brussels time. These are extraordinary and highly uncertain times. Great power rivalry and competition between the USA and China are at an all-time high; the world is still in the grips of an on-going pandemic. Post COVID-19 recovery will be a long drawn out process. In the midst of tensions between East and West there are some who argue that a bifurcation of global systems will take place as the World Order continues to evolve and global value chains experience some degree of uncoupling as a result of both the effects of the pandemic and existing geopolitical tensions. In an evolving international structure small states need all the friends they can find. They have few opportunities and weapons in the soft power tool kit with which to lobby for and protect their interests. Coalitions and alliances matter. In this era of heightened tensions during which the economic and social effects of the pandemic will be long lasting, small states such as the SIDS of the Caribbean need to tread wearily, not wishing to be caught in tensions between East or West. In such a world, how do they influence global policies and secure their interests? Can they?

Speakers
Len Ishmael
Senior Fellow
Ambassador Dr. Len Ishmael is an affiliate Professor at Mohammed VI Polytechnic University teaching the MSc course New South Dynamics, as well as Geopolitics and Geo-economics in the Joint HEC Paris/Public Policy School Executive Program. She is a Senior Fellow of the Policy Center for the New South, Distinguished Visiting Scholar of the German Marshall Fund of the United States of America and a Senior Fellow of the European Centre for Development Policy Management. Dr. Ishmael is the Global Affairs Advisor and Head of the Expert Groups of the Brussels Diplomatic Academy of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). She is the former Ambassador of the Eastern Caribbean States to the Kingdom of Belgium and European Union, past President of the 79-member African, Caribbean & ...
Eustace Wallace
Counsellor Political & Economic Affairs St Kitts & Nevis High Commission. Ottawa.
...

RELATED CONTENT

  • Download PDF
    Africa, Latin America, and Global Governance: Contributions to a New Global Order
    Authors
    Marcus Vinicius de Freitas
    January 23, 2026
    The post-1945 international order, an architecture born of war-weariness and colonial twilight, is now a majestic but empty shell. Its foundational promise—a universal system of rules administered impartially—has been hollowed out by decades of selective enforcement, instrumentalized law, and a chasm between the rhetorical ideals of its custodians and their geopolitical practice. This is not a temporary dysfunction, but a systemic failure of legitimacy. From the invasion of Iraq und ...
  • Download PDF
    The Baku To Belem Roadmap To $1.3 Trillion: The New South Should Take The Lead
    Authors
    Hafez Ghanem
    January 21, 2026
    In response to developing countries’ dissatisfaction with the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) of $300 billion, which was decided at the Twenty-Ninth Conference Of the Parties (COP29) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, in 2024 in Baku, Azerbaijan, the COP29 and COP30 presidencies promised to develop a roadmap to achieve $1.3 trillion in external climate finance that developing countries need, and to present it at COP30 in Belém, Brazil[1]. The two pre ...
  • Crisis or Opportunity? Multilateralism in a Polycentric World
    January 21, 2026
    The Policy Center for the New South hosted a seminar on January 16, 2026, titled “Crisis or Opportunity? Multilateralism in a Polycentric World.”The discussion addressed the growing strain on global cooperation amid overlapping financial, climate, security, and technological shocks, occ...
  • Download PDF
    Crisis or Opportunity? Pockets of Effective Multilateralism in a Polycentric World
    Authors
    Len Ishmael
    Stephan Klingebiel
    Andy Sumner
    January 9, 2026
    Global cooperation is under stress. It hardly requires detailed analysis: the international system is in a profound crisis, when seen from many Northern vantage points. What if we see the same turbulence but from a different vantage point? For many in the Global South the current period signals risk, but also opportunity. That the same events could spark a sense of crisis in one group but opportunity in another is nothing new. However, the sheer scale, speed, and scope of recen ...
  • The Trump Administration and Venezuela
    Ian O. Lesser & Ahmed Ouhnini
    January 09, 2026
    This episode explores the Trump administration’s confrontational stance toward Venezuela, including sanctions and military posturing and evaluates their effectiveness in undermining Madur ...
  • Download PDF
    L’AES face aux défis de la fragmentation territoriale et de l’instabilité politique
    Authors
    Nezha Alaoui M’hammdi
    Larabi Jaïdi
    January 6, 2026
    La création de l’Alliance des États du Sahel (AES) symbolise une rupture politique et géostratégique majeure, appuyée sur un discours souverainiste et anti-occidental. Deux ans après, Mali, Burkina Faso et Niger peinent à assurer leur intégrité territoriale, à stabiliser leur sécurité intérieure et à bâtir une gouvernance solide. L’intégrité territoriale est un problème commun aux trois États, car dans ces pays, la cohésion de l’État et le contrôle du territoire sont directement men ...
  • I Wanna Wake Up in the City That Never Sleeps
    Authors
    Helmut Sorge
    January 5, 2026
    The candidate could not have been more controversial—or more celebrated. Born in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, once ruled by Idi Amin, who famously declared himself “Conqueror of the British Empire” and “King of Scotland,” Zohran Kwama Mamdani, 34, is of Indian descent. His father is an academic, a professor of anthropology at Columbia University, his mother, Mira Nair, is an influential filmmaker. Zohran arrived in the USA on a visa at age seven. No doubt the agents of the feared ...