Barbados’ Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office and other International Organisations in Geneva, Matthew Wilson, speaking at the Fifth United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Youth Forum. (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade)
International policymakers need to promote youth participation and relinquish their privilege and space to young people, rather than always attempting to be their voice.
This was the message from Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Permanent Mission of Barbados to the United Nations Office and Other International Organisations in Geneva, Matthew Wilson, as he addressed the Fifth United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Youth Forum.
The Forum, held under the theme “Harnessing Youth Innovation: Technology as a Driver of Economic Transformation in Logistics and Beyond”, brought together young professionals and leaders from around the world to discuss innovation and inclusion in global trade and development.
Ambassador Wilson was joined on the panel by Minister of Commerce and Export Promotion – Algeria, Kamel Rezig; Production Planner – Peli Bio-Thermal, Birknesh Dereje Fikadu; Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Mata Logistic, Heba Kurdi, and moderator, Chief Executive Officer of Adagio VR, Sanya Rajpal.
In his presentation, Mr. Wilson spoke about the development of youth entrepreneurs and the importance of creating opportunities for young people to engage in policy dialogue as the future voices of nations across the globe.
He also referenced some of the challenges that young entrepreneurs face, such as access to finance, lack of information on trade and market intelligence, and confidence.
The Ambassador then took the opportunity to introduce Ade O’neal, a young representative from the Barbados Port Inc (BPI), and a member of the Barbadian delegation.
“Moderator, I want to stop here, and I want to give up my seat to Mr. Ade O’Neal of the Barbados Port Inc. to be able to take a seat and continue this conversation.”
In his remarks, Mr. O’neal outlined the development process for the Port Community System (PCS), explaining that the BPI was faced with the decision of outsourcing the solution or developing one internally.
“When we made the decision to develop in-house, we worked with the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, to identify some of the brightest and sharpest programmers and developers in their final year to come on board on the project.
“The result was one of the most innovative PCS developed in the Caribbean region, integrating modern technology like blockchain verification to authenticate documents and integrating AI in the design of the system to help predict trends to help inform business decisions.”
The 16th Ministerial Conference of UNCTAD concluded on Thursday in Geneva with a high-level declaration. Ambassador Wilson served as one of the Vice Chairs of the Conference and Friend of the Chair for the Trade and Productive, and Transport and Logistics clusters.
Author: Dionne Best
Source: https://gisbarbados.gov.bb/blog/voice-of-youth-vital-to-discussions-on-trade-development/
