By: Staff Writer
June 10, 2022
Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, said that there is no set priority for developing countries because there is no luxury of focusing on one issue at time.
Ms Mottley, speaking at the 2022 TIME100 Summit in New York, focused on what she felt would make life easier for the Caribbean and developing world as she identified three key areas of concerns going into the future. The first is the climate crisis.
The second issue is the COVID-19 pandemic and along with it the “antimicrobial resistance,” the latter she says is a “slow motion pandemic” that people are not talking about enough. This slow motion pandemic is responsible for 1.2m deaths a year directly, and 5m deaths indirectly.
The third issue is this war between Russia and the Ukraine that has supply chains strained and soaring inflation. “Particularly food inflation, energy inflation, you’re seeing here in the US and indeed that’s going to lead into another crisis with financing and debt.”
Noting that most of the world’s leaders are no longer hearing the cries of humanity and have become hardened to their please, she added: “That’s why I try to keep it simple. We need to see people, we need to feel people, we need to hear people and too often in this world, we are so narrow focused and regrettably now technology reinforces that.”
We need to “build bridges” on the differences we have on things like climate change and start talking with the people and not at the people. “Unless we can find global solutions to global problems and finance them globally, they will become problems that even those who think they’re insulated from them,” she further warned.
Speaking with particular regard to this “climate crisis” and how leaders are “crowding out” their ability to deliver on development for their people, these matters are top challenges not just for the developing world but for all countries.
Without question the world is getting warmer as sea levels rise, threatening low lying ecosystems and island nation states like those in the Caribbean. Carbon emissions reductions are seeing some progress, but not enough as now even developing countries are increasing their carbon footprint faster than the rate that developed countries could reduce their own. We need greater commitment to the sustainable development agenda beyond money.
“If we have to spend money recovering from a climate crisis, then we have less money to go into education, less to go into health less to go into other areas of development…” she also said.
Ms Mottley was selected as one of TIME Magazine’s 2022 top 100 list, putting her in rarefied air for Caribbean people and womanhood as both demographics rarely feature on this prestigious list.