The ease of ac­cess to il­le­gal firearms in the Caribbean con­tin­ues to harm its so­ci­eties with un­ac­cept­able con­se­quences. As such it is im­per­a­tive that there is bet­ter co-op­er­a­tion with­in and among na­tion­al, re­gion­al and glob­al stake­hold­ers to com­bat, pre­vent and erad­i­cate the il­lic­it weapons trade.

This was the mes­sage sent glob­al­ly by Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs and Cari­com Dr Amery Browne on Mon­day when he ad­dressed the 79th sum­mit of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly. Browne is lead­ing T&T’s del­e­ga­tion to the UN­GA, now in its cur­rent week of High-Lev­el meet­ings.

Ad­dress­ing world lead­ers and coun­tries’ min­is­te­r­i­al rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Browne said that the con­ven­ing of the sum­mit is cru­cial to re­new glob­al sol­i­dar­i­ty to meet UN mem­bers’ ex­ist­ing com­mit­ments, take ad­van­tage of new op­por­tu­ni­ties, and ef­fec­tive­ly iden­ti­fy a clear path to ad­dress con­tem­po­rary chal­lenges.

“In our quest to achieve sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment, we must en­sure that all mem­ber states are on a lev­el play­ing field.

“Those who are in par­tic­u­lar­ly unique cir­cum­stances must be af­ford­ed the nec­es­sary sup­port through in­ter­na­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion in or­der to tru­ly en­sure that none are left be­hind. Ac­cord­ing­ly, we must not re­nege on our com­mit­ments to LD­Cs (least de­vel­oped coun­tries), LLD­Cs (land­locked de­vel­op­ing coun­tries) and SIDS (small is­land de­vel­op­ing states).

“There­fore, Trinidad and To­ba­go un­der­scores the im­por­tance of the re­form of the in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial ar­chi­tec­ture and em­pha­sizes that Of­fi­cial De­vel­op­ment As­sis­tance should be guid­ed by the mul­ti-di­men­sion­al vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty in­dex,” Browne said.

He added, “It is tru­ly re­gret­table that at this time, the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty is fail­ing at the main­te­nance of peace and se­cu­ri­ty glob­al­ly. The un­prece­dent­ed es­ca­la­tion in the num­ber and scale of con­flicts con­tra­dicts the very pur­pose for which the Unit­ed Na­tions was built.

“We must act bold­ly and de­ci­sive­ly to ef­fec­tive­ly bring an end to these con­flicts and achieve sus­tain­able peace for all.

“The ease of ac­cess to il­le­gal firearms in the Caribbean con­tin­ues to harm our so­ci­eties with un­ac­cept­able con­se­quences. In this con­text, it is im­per­a­tive that there is bet­ter co­op­er­a­tion with­in and amongst na­tion­al, re­gion­al and glob­al stake­hold­ers to com­bat, pre­vent and erad­i­cate the il­lic­it trade in small arms and light weapons.”

Browne told the UN­GA that Trinidad and To­ba­go recog­nis­es the role of sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy and in­no­va­tion for this coun­try to achieve sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment.

“How­ev­er, as we progress in­to an era of high de­pen­dence on tech­nol­o­gy and rapid ad­vance­ments in ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, we must al­so ac­knowl­edge the mag­ni­tude of the as­so­ci­at­ed risks. There­fore, as a small de­vel­op­ing State, we are not on­ly ad­vo­cat­ing for co­op­er­a­tion aimed at bridg­ing the dig­i­tal di­vide but al­so for strength­en­ing our ca­pac­i­ty in cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty to ad­dress those risks.

“Our young peo­ple are key stake­hold­ers in our pur­suit of sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment. Con­se­quent­ly, we must en­sure that they are equipped with the nec­es­sary tools and pro­vid­ed with the op­por­tu­ni­ties to reach their full po­ten­tial. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, our poli­cies and pro­grammes must in­clude pro­vi­sions to en­sure the well-be­ing of fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.

“In this con­text, T&T re­mains unswerv­ing in our com­mit­ment to en­hanc­ing the qual­i­ty of life of our youth pop­u­la­tion, and that of fu­ture gen­er­a­tions,” Browne said.

He al­so re­mind­ed the UN of the words of this coun­try’s first prime min­is­ter.

“The fa­ther of our na­tion and first prime min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Dr Er­ic Williams in a state­ment in 1968, af­firmed that the cen­tral re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the UN is the main­te­nance of world peace, not on­ly through con­cil­i­a­tion and dis­cus­sion but al­so through the pro­mo­tion of hu­man de­vel­op­ment.

“His words are rel­e­vant even to­day, in re­mind­ing us of the im­por­tance of ful­fill­ing our oblig­a­tions as re­spon­si­ble mem­bers of our Unit­ed Na­tions,” said Browne.