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 & Paci ...
Eustace Wallace
Counsellor Political & Economic Affairs St Kitts & Nevis High Commission. Ottawa.
...

RELATED CONTENT

  • The fear of political violence
    Authors
    Helmut Sorge
    September 14, 2022
    “Be there “, tweeted the President of the United States, “will be wild”. January, 6, 2021, was     supposed to be a historic day. The members of Congress would certify the electoral vote- declaring Joe Biden, the Democrat as 46th   President. Instead a band playing “God bless America” or “Hail to the Chief”, gunfire was heard and insurgents forcing their way into Congress on Capitol Hill, chanting “ Hang Mike Pence”, the Vice President, who was hiding in an underground garage, prote ...
  • Download PDF
    La Corée du Sud et le Maghreb
    Authors
    Abdallah Saaf
    September 12, 2022
    Les responsables des États du Maghreb aimaient donner en exemple l’expérience de la Corée du Sud : ils semblaient signifier que grâce à ses périodes autoritaires elle a pu accéder au développement économique, voire à la puissance économique et, du coup, à la démocratie. La Corée du Sud a développé sa présence économique mais aussi politique et culturelle dans les pays de la région maghrébine à partir de plusieurs entrées : les relations avec l’ensemble de la re ...
  • Africa to the rescue of Europe?
    Hamza Mjahed, Soukaina El Majidi
    September 09, 2022
    Key Challenges and Opportunities of African natural gas supplies to Europe. Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the African natural gas has emerged as an alternative to Russian na ...
  • Escalation is rewarded, restrained is criticized
    Authors
    Helmut Sorge
    September 8, 2022
    Why should this lady be terrified? She is worth 120 Million dollars, and the “New York Times” named her ( January 2, 2019)” an icon of female power”. If the US President and his Vice, Kamala Harris, are incapacitated and unable to lead, she will, as written in the Constitution, move into the White House, Nancy Pelosi, 82, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, and for 35 years, as Democrat,  member of Congress. No, she wasn‘t frightened of crude Chinese threats. She survived a ...
  • Download PDF
    Liberté ou autocratie, le dilemme
    Authors
    Alfredo Da Gama e Abreu Valladão
    September 7, 2022
    Le président des États-Unis, Joe Biden, malgré les états de service catastrophiques de son pays en Irak ou en Afghanistan, n’a pas tort d’affirmer que le monde va vers un affrontement entre l’autocratie et la liberté. Et, qu’en fin de compte, il va falloir choisir. Cela fait grincer des dents, surtout en Europe qui est divisée sur le sujet. ...
  • The worst since 1945 - Part II
    Authors
    Helmut Sorge
    August 31, 2022
    Boris Johnson has been pushed into giving up  the country’s leadership during a perilous economic moment, noted the “New York Times”( July 7, 2022), leaving behind a grim outlook and an uncertain Brexit legacy. Inflation in the country has reached an annual rate of 9.1 percent, the highest in four decades, driven by supply chain disruptions from pandemic lockdown and the war in Ukraine.  Eshe Nelson draws a sober assessment of the British economy left behind by Boris Johnson: ” Pri ...
  • Download PDF
    Le Japon en Afrique : un acteur actif mais discret
    Authors
    Redouan Najah
    August 26, 2022
    Si l’Afrique est de nos jours convoitée par de nombreux acteurs (Turquie, Chine, Russie, etc..), le Japon y renforce et diversifie sa présence. Deuxième contributeur de la Banque africaine de développement (BAD), le pays du « soleil levant » s’implante en Afrique centrale, du Nord et de l’Est, avec un focus sur le domaine technique avec des objectifs très précis (nouvelles technologies, sécurité alimentaire, infrastructures). C’est cependant un partenaire qui privilégie la discrétio ...
  • The old magic was no longer working - Part I
    Authors
    Helmut Sorge
    August 23, 2022
    The rules he followed were his own. Made by Boris for Johnson. From his earliest days, Alexander Boris Johnson noted the BBC (July 7, 2022) “tended to believe rules were for other people.” When he worked as a journalist in Brussel’s decades ago, he unchained his phantasy and filed reports which were close to the truth but more often than not, just fake. “His route to No 10 Downing Street “, writes Jonathan Freedland in the “Guardian “(July 7, 2022), “was smoothed with lies.” Once, h ...
  • Download PDF
    The future of global value chains and the role of the WTO
    Authors
    Uri Dadush
    August 23, 2022
    Disruptions to global value chains (GVCs) – caused by conflicts, natural disasters, and accidents that close transport routes – and that affect specific regions or sectors, are not unusual. However, in recent years and amid the Covid-19 pandemic, they have become more frequent and severe. High profile, sizeable, and repeated disruptions raise pressing questions: Is the breakdown in many GVCs a temporary glitch, or a permanent phenomenon? Have GVCs become endemically more accident pr ...