Barbados to open new diplomatic missions in Ghana, Kenya and the UAE

Barbados, in an effort to expand its diplomatic footprint and as part of the national effort toward economic reconstruction and business generation, will establish three new missions in the upcoming financial year.

According to the country’s Foreign Affairs Minister Jerome Walcott, the new diplomatic offices will be opened in Ghana, Kenya and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with the intention of expanding Barbados’ South-South cooperation, “strengthening our global people-to-people contact, and expand trade in Barbados’ goods and services, including tourism.”

“These new missions will be at the forefront of efforts to identify new and emerging sectors that can propel and expand the Barbadian economy, and also to strengthen, advance and diversify bilateral and multilateral action to promote Barbados’ interests globally. Since independence, our mantra has been “friends of all, satellites of none”; it is now time for us to widen our network of friends, especially in the face of COVID-19,” he added.

The mission office in Ghana, which is said to be the ancestral homeland of a large population of Barbados’ population, will be established in Accra.

In Kenya, the office will serve as Barbados’ permanent mission to the United Nations Office in Nairobi, which is the third largest United Nations Office in the world.

The minister pointed out that Barbados’ diplomatic presence in Kenya would be part of a shared CARICOM (Caribbean Community) office space, and would be a working example of strengthened regional cooperation.

He said the establishment of an embassy in Abu Dhabi would serve to significantly advance the growth of a stronger bilateral partnership with the United Arab Emirates, and would be a platform for the formation and strengthening of strategic alliances with other Gulf States. -(CMC)