RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly’s (UN­GA) new­ly elect­ed Pres­i­dent, T&T’s Per­ma­nent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the Unit­ed Na­tions, His Ex­cel­len­cy Am­bas­sador Den­nis Fran­cis, is a good ex­am­ple for T&T youth hav­ing come from hum­ble be­gin­nings.

Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, Amery Browne said so dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence held at the Min­istry in St Clair yes­ter­day.

Browne said he saw Fran­cis’ suc­cess as an im­por­tant ex­am­ple and in­spi­ra­tion to the young men and young women in T&T.

“Am­bas­sador Fran­cis is now at the pin­na­cle. He was not born with a gold­en spoon in his mouth. He’s from right here in Boissiere Vil­lage. The son of a car­pen­ter. His moth­er was a home­mak­er. Very hum­ble be­gin­nings,” Browne said.

“He did not at­tend a fan­cy pres­tige school. He at­tend­ed a good school, Wood­brook Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary, and pro­gressed from there. He went to Poly­tech­nic, so these are not what might be re­gard­ed as glam­orous roots, but, I can tell you, they were sub­stan­tial roots.”

Browne said that in speak­ing to Am­bas­sador Fran­cis very fre­quent­ly over the last few months, Fran­cis told him that he had a choice to make.

He added, “And it’s a choice that many young peo­ple have to make to­day and to choose a path of ded­i­ca­tion, de­ter­mi­na­tion, sac­ri­fice, ap­pli­ca­tion, what­ev­er you do, do it to the very best of your abil­i­ty. Those are the choic­es that Den­nis Fran­cis made. It took him from the streets of Boissiere and Wood­brook Gov­ern­ment Sec­ondary to the pres­i­den­cy of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly proud­ly wear­ing the badge and car­ry­ing the iden­ti­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go. If that is not a good ex­am­ple to the young men and the young women of this coun­try I don’t know what is.”

It is the first time that a nom­i­nee from T&T has been elect­ed Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly Pres­i­dent. Fran­cis was elect­ed as the 78th Pres­i­dent of the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly.

It took place at the Unit­ed Na­tions Head­quar­ters in New York last Thurs­day.

Ac­cord­ing to the UN T&T, the UN­GA Pres­i­dent pre­sides over high-lev­el meet­ings, shapes the pri­or­i­ties of the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly and plays a cru­cial role in fa­cil­i­tat­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions among mem­ber states.

The pres­i­den­cy of the UN­GA is there­fore a pres­ti­gious plat­form for a coun­try to pro­mote in­ter­na­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion, build con­sen­sus on key glob­al is­sues and raise the pro­file of its own mul­ti­lat­er­al pri­or­i­ties on the glob­al stage.

In a state­ment fol­low­ing the elec­tion, UN T&T stat­ed, “Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ues to be a lead­ing Caribbean voice cham­pi­oning the needs and chal­lenges of Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States. This hall­mark of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s glob­al ad­vo­ca­cy dove­tails seam­less­ly with the stat­ed pri­or­i­ty of Pres­i­dent-elect Fran­cis to fa­cil­i­tate, among oth­er con­fer­ences, the Fourth In­ter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence on Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States tak­ing place in An­tigua and Bar­bu­da in 2024.”

Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo ex­tends con­grat­u­la­tions

Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo has con­grat­u­lat­ed ca­reer diplo­mat Den­nis Fran­cis on be­ing elect­ed as the 78th pres­i­dent of the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly (UN­GA).

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, Kan­ga­loo said, “I am ex­treme­ly pleased to ex­tend my con­grat­u­la­tions to His Ex­cel­len­cy Den­nis Fran­cis, Am­bas­sador Ex­tra­or­di­nary and Plenipo­ten­tiary, Per­ma­nent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go to the Unit­ed Na­tions on his elec­tion to the po­si­tion of Pres­i­dent of the 78th Ses­sion of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly.

“This is in­deed a wa­ter­shed mo­ment for our coun­try and it fills me with pride that such a dis­tin­guished son of the soil will pre­side over the main pol­i­cy-mak­ing or­gan of the Unit­ed Na­tions. I wish His Ex­cel­len­cy every suc­cess in his new role.”