KE­JAN HAYNES

Lead Ed­i­tor – News­gath­er­ing

Am­bas­sador Den­nis Fran­cis has called his term as Pres­i­dent of the 78th Ses­sion of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly (UN­GA), "the ho­n­our and priv­i­lege of a life­time".

Fran­cis was elect­ed Pres­i­dent of the 78th Ses­sion of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly on June 1, 2023. His term of­fi­cial­ly end­ed on Tues­day, af­ter the one-year stip­u­lat­ed term of of­fice.

Am­bas­sador Fran­cis was Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Per­ma­nent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the Unit­ed Na­tions, New York, at the time of his elec­tion.

He ad­dressed the UN for the last time as UN­GA pres­i­dent thank­ing many, in­clud­ing UN Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al An­to­nio Guter­res, the Gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, and the peo­ple of the re­gion, for be­liev­ing in him to do the work in the post.

"I ex­tend my deep­est grat­i­tude to the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go for their trust and con­fi­dence in send­ing forth a nom­i­na­tion for this of­fice in my name. Trinidad and To­ba­go, a small is­land na­tion I'm im­mense­ly proud to call home, has been piv­otal to my ed­u­ca­tion and ca­reer ad­vance­ment. And it will re­main at the heart of my en­deav­ours, what­ev­er they may be in the years ahead," Fran­cis said to the As­sem­bly. "While I hope I have made my coun­try and in­deed my re­gion proud, it was nev­er lost on me that this was, in fact, a glob­al man­date, ne­ces­si­tat­ing that I dis­charge this re­spon­si­bil­i­ty with the ut­most com­mit­ment to serve all Mem­ber States with im­par­tial­i­ty and equidis­tance, with equal mea­sure."

Fran­cis, a ca­reer diplo­mat with over 40 years’ ex­pe­ri­ence, is the first UN­GA Pres­i­dent from Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Min­is­ter of For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs, Dr. Amery Browne, who was one of the loud­est voic­es in cham­pi­oning his nom­i­na­tion as pres­i­dent re­mained grate­ful and he, and Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley as­sured him [Fran­cis] that the na­tion would wish to "fur­ther ben­e­fit from his high cal­i­bre of ser­vice in an ap­pro­pri­ate ca­pac­i­ty."

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Min­is­ter Browne said the Gov­ern­ment and the na­tion at large are "ex­ceed­ing­ly proud" of the man­ner with which "His Ex­cel­len­cy un­der­took all of the oner­ous and com­plex du­ties and de­mands of that high of­fice."

"I feel a great deal of joy that Trinidad and To­ba­go was able to of­fer to the world a se­nior diplo­mat with the most ex­em­plary at­trib­ut­es. As UN­GA Pres­i­dent, Am­bas­sador Fran­cis has el­e­vat­ed the na­tion­al brand and con­tin­ued our long tra­di­tion of punch­ing above our weight in in­ter­na­tion­al af­fairs," Dr Browne said.

"This son of Boissiere Vil­lage, Wood­brook Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary, and our For­eign Ser­vice, through­out his ca­reer and par­tic­u­lar­ly as Pres­i­dent of the UN­GA, has demon­strat­ed courage, in­tegri­ty, and wis­dom to a de­gree that must be in­spi­ra­tional to the next gen­er­a­tion of diplo­mats, and to our young peo­ple in gen­er­al."

Am­bas­sador Fran­cis high­light­ed sev­er­al achieve­ments in­clud­ing pan­dem­ic pre­ven­tion, uni­ver­sal health cov­er­age, and the fight against tu­ber­cu­lo­sis. He said health was the core of his team's in­ter­na­tion­al agen­da.

He al­so touched on his vis­its to sev­er­al con­flict zones, in­clud­ing Haiti.

"My vis­its to Haiti, South Su­dan and Ukraine were es­pe­cial­ly poignant.  As these na­tions are fac­ing con­flict, in­se­cu­ri­ty and ag­gres­sion, the UN's ef­forts in these re­gions are tru­ly life­sav­ing, and I con­veyed a mes­sage of sol­i­dar­i­ty and un­wa­ver­ing sup­port, which was well re­ceived," he not­ed.

One thing he did re­gret, how­ev­er, was be­ing un­able to get on the ground in Pales­tine. But he said call­ing for a cease­fire re­mained stead­fast in his mind.

"While cir­cum­stances frus­trat­ed my de­sire to meet with Is­raelis and the Pales­tini­ans on the ground in the vicin­i­ty of the the­atre of on­go­ing ac­tion de­vel­op­ments,” he said, “there re­mained up­per­most in my mind, and I have dis­cussed that sit­u­a­tion with every rel­e­vant leader, in­clud­ing His Ho­li­ness, Pope Fran­cis.”

He not­ed: “It is my sin­cere hope that on­go­ing ef­forts will pro­duce a cease­fire, even if tem­po­rary, and this can some­how lead to a po­lit­i­cal process to­wards achiev­ing long, last­ing peace for the sake of the peo­ples of the re­gion."

In his last press con­fer­ence, held on Mon­day, he al­so not­ed one of his pri­or­i­ties was sea lev­el rise.

"Sea lev­el rise im­pacts many coun­tries, par­tic­u­lar­ly Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States and low-ly­ing ar­eas," he stat­ed. "Heads of State and Gov­ern­ment will dis­cuss this on Sep­tem­ber 25, 2024."

Fran­cis was al­so able to vis­it Trinidad and To­ba­go from 4th to 7th Au­gust. The trip in­clud­ed meet­ings with the Pres­i­dent, mem­bers of Cab­i­net, and even a tour of his Al­ma Mater Wood­brook Sec­ondary.

Be­fore hand­ing over to Philé­mon Yang as pres­i­dent of the 79th Ses­sion of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly, Am­bas­sador Fran­cis thanked his wife, Joy, for her pa­tience and un­der­stand­ing while he ex­e­cut­ed his du­ties. He said he did so with a heart full of grat­i­tude.