The new Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM), Dr Car­la Na­tal­ie Bar­nett, will as­sume du­ties of­fi­cial­ly on Mon­day 16 Au­gust 2021, fol­low­ing an In­stal­la­tion Cer­e­mo­ny at 10:00 am, to wel­come her in­to of­fice.

Dr Bar­nett is the first fe­male CARI­COM Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al, and the first Be­lizean to be se­lect­ed for the post.  She suc­ceeds Am­bas­sador Ir­win LaRocque, who has com­plet­ed two terms in the post.

She was vot­ed in unan­i­mous­ly by CARI­COM Heads of Gov­ern­ment in Spe­cial Ses­sion, dur­ing a vir­tu­al meet­ing on Tues­day 11 May 2021.

The In­stal­la­tion Cer­e­mo­ny will be livestreamed on CARI­COM’s so­cial me­dia plat­forms: CARI­COM You Tube Chan­nel, at https://youtu.be/PFj4EzWr0vw; and the CARI­COM Face­book Page, at https://www.face­book.com/cari­com.org

A re­lease from the CARI­COM Sec­re­tari­at says the cur­rent Chair­man of CARI­COM, Prime Min­is­ter of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, the Ho­n­ourable Gas­ton Browne, will wel­come the new Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al and bring greet­ings from the Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment.

Dr Bar­nett will ad­dress the Cer­e­mo­ny and is ex­pect­ed to out­line her vi­sion for her tenure of of­fice as the re­gion­al body’s eighth Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al, high­light­ing those mat­ters that will oc­cu­py her im­me­di­ate at­ten­tion.

She is well fa­mil­iar with the op­er­a­tions of CARI­COM, hav­ing served as a for­mer Deputy Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al.  In her home coun­try, Be­lize, she served as a vice pres­i­dent of the Be­lize Sen­ate and in var­i­ous min­is­te­r­i­al ca­pac­i­ties in her coun­try’s gov­ern­ment. She al­so has served as Fi­nan­cial Sec­re­tary of Be­lize and Deputy Gov­er­nor of the Cen­tral Bank of Be­lize, as well as Vice-Pres­i­dent (Op­er­a­tions) of the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank (CDB).

Dr Bar­nett at­tained her PhD in So­cial Sci­ences from The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies’ Mona Cam­pus in Ja­maica. She al­so holds a Mas­ter of Sci­ence de­gree in Eco­nom­ics from the Uni­ver­si­ty of West­ern On­tario in Cana­da, and a Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence de­gree in Eco­nom­ics from The UWI.