Ryan Ba­choo

Trinidad and To­ba­go's Per­ma­nent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the Unit­ed Na­tions, His Ex­cel­len­cy Am­bas­sador Den­nis Fran­cis, has been elect­ed as the 78th Pres­i­dent of the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly (UN­GA).

It marks the first time that a nom­i­nee from Trinidad and To­ba­go has been elect­ed UN­GA Pres­i­dent.

It took place at the Unit­ed Na­tions Head­quar­ters in New York on Thurs­day morn­ing. Ac­cord­ing to the UN Trinidad and To­ba­go, 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. 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 Trinidad and To­ba­go 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."