Dear Editor,
I note with interest the editorial in the Sunday Observer of May 12, headlined 'Paucity of Caribbean citizens in the top echelons', in which you make certain assertions about Jamaicans and Caribbean nationals in international organisations.
It is good that you have raised this important topic, but I would be grateful if you would allow me to correct one aspect of your editorial, and to offer a brief comment on the situation concerning the Inter-American system and at the International Trade Centre of the United Nations.
Specifically, your editorial refers to senior positions held, inter alia, by highly accomplished Caribbean nationals Richard Fletcher at the Inter-American Development Bank, and Gladstone Bonnick at the World Bank (both of Jamaica), as well as Ewart Williams (Trinidad and Tobago) and Sam Stephens (Jamaica) at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). These Caribbean nationals have indeed given us reasons to be proud. Your implication, however, that Jamaicans and other Caribbean nationals are not now similarly placed in senior positions is not correct as far as the IMF is concerned.
At the IMF today, there are four Jamaicans in senior positions, the highest in the history of the institution. David Marston is the deputy director of the Strategy, Policy and Review Department; Jennifer Lester is an assistant general counsel of the Legal Department; Trevor Alleyne is an adviser in the African Department; and Calvin McDonald is a deputy secretary of the IMF.
For the record, David Marston and Calvin McDonald are at the same grade as Ewart Williams was at the time of his retirement from the IMF, while Jennifer Lester and Trevor Alleyne are at the same level as that achieved by Sam Stephens. So, with respect to the IMF, the premise of your editorial is vulnerable to challenge on factual grounds.
With respect to the Inter-American system, your editorial has correctly noted that the recently elected Dr Carissa Etienne of Dominica now heads the Pan-American Health Organisation and Ambassador Albert Ramdin of Suriname is the assistant secretary general of the Organisation of American States.
Jamaica has, in recent years, also supported the election of two members of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (out of seven members), and the country is in the midst of public and private efforts to bring about an increase in the members of the Secretariat of the Commission from Caricom: here, we are significantly under-represented, and we hope that Jamaican and Caricom efforts will bring about change in this area in the very near future.
In closing, please permit me to note also that Jamaica's own Patricia Francis has been the executive director of the International Trade Centre (ITC) since 2006. The ITC serves as the focal point for trade-related technical assistance within the United Nations system. This, I believe, is precisely the kind of Caribbean leadership that your editorial wishes to promote.
Stephen Vasciannie
Jamaican Ambassador to the United States of America and Permanent Representative to the Organisation of American States
Not quite so, Observer
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I note with interest the editorial in the Sunday Observer of May 12, headlined 'Paucity of Caribbean citizens in the top echelons', in which you make certain assertions about Jamaicans and Caribbean nationals in international organisations.
It is good that you have raised this important topic, but I would be grateful if you would allow me to correct one aspect of your editorial, and to offer a brief comment on the situation concerning the Inter-American system and at the International Trade Centre of the United Nations.
Specifically, your editorial refers to senior positions held, inter alia, by highly accomplished Caribbean nationals Richard Fletcher at the Inter-American Development Bank, and Gladstone Bonnick at the World Bank (both of Jamaica), as well as Ewart Williams (Trinidad and Tobago) and Sam Stephens (Jamaica) at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). These Caribbean nationals have indeed given us reasons to be proud. Your implication, however, that Jamaicans and other Caribbean nationals are not now similarly placed in senior positions is not correct as far as the IMF is concerned.
At the IMF today, there are four Jamaicans in senior positions, the highest in the history of the institution. David Marston is the deputy director of the Strategy, Policy and Review Department; Jennifer Lester is an assistant general counsel of the Legal Department; Trevor Alleyne is an adviser in the African Department; and Calvin McDonald is a deputy secretary of the IMF.
For the record, David Marston and Calvin McDonald are at the same grade as Ewart Williams was at the time of his retirement from the IMF, while Jennifer Lester and Trevor Alleyne are at the same level as that achieved by Sam Stephens. So, with respect to the IMF, the premise of your editorial is vulnerable to challenge on factual grounds.
With respect to the Inter-American system, your editorial has correctly noted that the recently elected Dr Carissa Etienne of Dominica now heads the Pan-American Health Organisation and Ambassador Albert Ramdin of Suriname is the assistant secretary general of the Organisation of American States.
Jamaica has, in recent years, also supported the election of two members of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (out of seven members), and the country is in the midst of public and private efforts to bring about an increase in the members of the Secretariat of the Commission from Caricom: here, we are significantly under-represented, and we hope that Jamaican and Caricom efforts will bring about change in this area in the very near future.
In closing, please permit me to note also that Jamaica's own Patricia Francis has been the executive director of the International Trade Centre (ITC) since 2006. The ITC serves as the focal point for trade-related technical assistance within the United Nations system. This, I believe, is precisely the kind of Caribbean leadership that your editorial wishes to promote.
Stephen Vasciannie
Jamaican Ambassador to the United States of America and Permanent Representative to the Organisation of American States
Not quite so, Observer
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