Patricia Scotland shares glimpse of her meet with presented DG of WTO Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

Caribbean: Patricia Scotland- sixth and first lady of the Secretary-General of Commonwealth who is on her official visit to Geneva for the eve of MC12 and presented DG of World Trade Organisation Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala with the Commonwealth’s exciting new children’s book series on sustainable energy and was delighted to hear she’ll consider replicating the concept in trade.

On the margins of MC12, Patricia Scotland had a positive and constructive discussion with Malawi’s Minister of Trade and Industry, Mark Katsonga Phiri, on the work of the Small States office and how government can support Malawi in their development agenda.

According to Patricia Scotland, “Commonwealth Secretary-General enjoys close and warm cooperation with the Government of Malawi and will continue to provide essential support in research and analysis, capacity building, MC12 implementation, digital trade, and intra-commonwealth trade and investment.”

She added that she had productive discussions with representatives from Forum SEC who were in Geneva for the WTO ministerial. The group expressed sincere appreciation for the guidance and technical advice provided by our Small States Office and agreed to maintain this close collaboration.

“32/42 Small States are in the Commonwealth. I reaffirmed Commonwealth Sec’s strong commitment to continue supporting PIF countries on important policy areas such as Climate Change, digitisation, trade & environmental sustainability, and sustainable tourism & recovery strategies,” said CSG Scotland.

Yesterday, she thanked the teams at GOQ, Cambridge and all the experts, individuals and especially young people who contributed to this ongoing collaboration with Cambridge.

She said I know that we will see many more such investments in the future.

Caribbean and Cambridge University are going to work together in the future, and investment in the Caribbean is exactly the type of outcome we hoped to see real jobs and investment in the region.