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

June 17, 2021

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 a Senior Fellow of the Policy Center for the New South and a Senior Fellow and Distinguished Visiting Scholar of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. She is the Global Affairs Advisor of the Brussels Diplomatic Academy and visiting Professor of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and the Mohammed 6 University, Morocco. Dr. Ishmael is a Commissioner on the Lancet Commission on COVID-19’s Regional Task Force for Latin America. She is the former Ambassador of the Eastern Caribbean States to the Kingdom of Belgium and European Union, and past President of the 79-member African, Caribbean & Pacific (ACP) Committee of Ambassadors in Brussels. She is a former Director & Head of the Regional Headquarters of the United Nations Economic ...
Eustace Wallace
Counsellor Political & Economic Affairs St Kitts & Nevis High Commission. Ottawa.
...

  • Authors
    April 15, 2024
    Tanks Are Not Yet Deployed Containers are in place, razor wire and metal barriers, nine meters high. Dogs sniff for illegal intruders, spyware registers noise, alerting border patrol units to people approaching the border, trying to evade National Guard troops. Tanks, mind you, have not yet been deployedon the 1954 miles (3145 kilometer) border between Mexico and the U.S. Migrants who approach dare to pass through ferocious desert, climb harsh mountains, jump on freight trains pass ...
  • Authors
    Imane Lahrich
    April 8, 2024
    Breaking Bonds, Forging Alliances On January 28, 2024, the military leaders of Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso declared their joint intention to exit the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), presenting three substantial criticisms against the regional organization. Their foremost claimed grievance was that ECOWAS has departed from its foundational vision, implying that foreign influences have diverted the regional organization from its essential values to the detriment ...
  • Authors
    Zineb Faidi
    April 5, 2024
    L’actualité politique en Afrique est marquée par une série de ruptures qui fait écarquiller les yeux de certains observateurs. Une vague de coups d’État, le retrait de la France de certains pays du continent, la fin du G5 Sahel, la création de l’Alliance des États du Sahel (AES) et le disloquement d’une des Communautés économiques régionales (CER) les plus « intégrées » d’Afrique, la CEDEAO, sont des évènements, tantôt perçus comme une bouffée d’air frais et un espoir de renouveau a ...
  • April 2, 2024
    يخصص مركز السياسات من أجل الجنوب الجديد حلقة برنامجه الأسبوعي "حديث الثلاثاء" لمناقشة موضوع الحضور الصيني في إفريقيا ومستقبل مبادرة الحزام والطريق. في ظل المساعي الصينية لتوسيع نفوذها عالمياً عبر التواجد في مناطق العالم المختلفة ذات أهمية جيواستراتجبة، تعد افريقيا واحدة من أهم القارات ا...
  • March 29, 2024
    L’intégration régionale maghrébine est devenue, dans un contexte international en proie à d’importantes reconfigurations, plus qu’une nécessité économique, un impératif de la transformati ...
  • March 25, 2024
    La publication, le 13 mars 2024, d’un projet de décret portant expropriation de trois propriétés inscrites au nom de la République algérienne à Rabat, a été considérée comme une provocation et une violation du droit diplomatique par le gouvernement de ce pays qui a menacé d’y répondre par tous les moyens. Le 17 mars, la presse a publié des copies de notes du Consulat algérien a Casablanca, apportant la preuve que ce gouvernement était le premier à annoncer l’expropri ...
  • Authors
    March 22, 2024
    L’Alliance des États du Sahel (AES), créée le 16 septembre 2023, rassemble dans un accord de défense mutuelle le Mali, le Niger et le Burkina Faso. La signature de la charte afférente à cette alliance qui porte le nom du Liptako-Gourma a été suivie de rencontre et de projets d’initiatives qui poussent plus loin la nouvelle structure vers des statuts de l’alliance pour la transformer en confédération. Comme mesure intermédiaire, les trois États ont d’ores et déjà envisa ...