Strengthening US-Caribbean Strategic Engagement

On Monday, September 18, 2017, the SUNY-UWI Center for Leadership and Sustainable Development hosted a round table discussion titled The Third Border: Increasing Opportunities for U.S. Caribbean Strategic Engagement. The event brought together subject matter experts from The University of the West Indies (The UWI) and the State University of New York System (SUNY) along with other academics, diplomats, politicians, business leaders and interest groups to discuss the strategic engagement between the Caribbean and the United States.

A special feature of the session was an address by Congressman Eliot Engel, Ranking Member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and co-author of the legislation-United States-Caribbean Strategic Engagement Act, known as H.R. 2939 - which was passed in the United States Congress and mandates a new long-term strategy to strengthen ties between the US and the Caribbean region.

Congressman Eliot Engel (via video conference from Belize), Ranking Member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Congressman Eliot Engel (via video conference from Belize), Ranking Member on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The round table was one of a series of initiatives hosted by the SUNY-UWI Center, focused on raising awareness of issues affecting the Caribbean, Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and their diaspora in the period under review.

Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles with Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke, Ninth Congressional District of New York, and SUNY Chairman, H. Carl McCall. Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles with Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke, Ninth Congressional District of New York, and SUNY Chairman, H. Carl McCall.