PM people-focused

Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s main focus is on improving the lives of Barbadians and people living in the Caribbean.

Mottley made her intentions clear today while speaking at the Time 100 Summit in New York, stating that she would continue to fight for the rights of developing countries.

During her interview with Time Magazine CEO and Editor-In-Chief Edward Felsenthal, Mottley, who was recently named by the magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of 2022, contended that Barbados and the rest of the region continued to be disadvantaged because of size.

When asked what her top priority this year was, the Prime Minister said: “To make life easier for our people in Barbados, the Caribbean and generally in the developing world.

“We don’t have the issue of focusing on one issue, we have to focus on all and regrettably we have faced three crisis in the last few years. We’ve faced the climate crisis which is continuing and existential in a very real way. We’ve faced the pandemic which is COVID but we’re also facing the antimicrobial resistance slow-motion pandemic which people don’t talk about and which we speak about because it’s responsible for 1.2 million deaths a year directly and five million deaths indirectly. Thirdly, we’ve faced the consequences of the war that has broken out this year, which is being seen in inflation, particularly food inflation, energy inflation…It’s a lot.

“We’ve got to find a way of creating space to ensure that those people who are on the margins of development, largely because of their history, largely because we’ve not had the kind of equitable, strong leadership globally that sees people, hears people and feels people. We’ve got to keep fighting for them and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

Mottley maintained that not enough was being done to “build bridges” to connect mankind.

“We’re not building that platform to bridge the differences whether it is the difference on the perspectives of climate or any of the major issues and I think more and more we need to learn the art of building dignified bridges to be able to ensure that humanity can come together in that common space,” the Prime Minister said.

Mottley also used the opportunity to thank Time Magazine for acknowledging her contributions which she said were for the benefit of Barbados and the region.

“I see your recognizing me as recognizing a message that is coming from the developing world and coming from Barbados and the Caribbean and I want to thank you for having the courage to recognize that message because we need more people globally to accept that if we simply continue as is we already have a cementing of what the world looked like in 1945…” Mottley said. (RB)