Dominican PM Skerrit receives honorary degree

The Caribbean island nation Dominica's Prime Minister, Roosevelt Skerrit here on Tuesday has received an honorary degree from the Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university said it was in recognition of his leadership and advocacy on climate change.

The Degree of Humane Letters was conferred on him at a ceremony on the university’s campus by President of the University, Dr. Ken Gormley in the morning.

“It is my privilege to confer upon you an honorary doctorate from the Duquesne University of the Holy Spirit celebrating this year its 140th year as a premier higher education institution in recognition of your many accomplishments,” Gormley stated to Skerrit during the ceremony.

“He gets this diploma and he didn’t have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to get this one,” he added.

During the ceremony, Skerrit delivered a lecture on “Building Climate Resilient Countries” as part of the University’s ‘Integrity Creation of Leadership’ series.

Earlier in 2016, Skerrit had received an Honorary Doctorate from the Lovely Professional University in Punjab, India.

In 2017, Skerrit and the government established the Climate Resilient Execution Agency for Dominica (CREAD), a task force designed to hurricane-proof the island. Dominica has been striving towards becoming the world’s first climate-resilient nation since it suffered catastrophic damage by Hurricane Maria in 2017, Tropical Storm Erika in 2015 and numerous other storms.

In 2004, at the age of 31, Roosevelt Skerrit became the world’s youngest head of government, when he was sworn in as Prime Minister after the untimely passing of his predecessor Pierre Charles.

Skirrit was reappointed in 2005, 2009 and 2014. The political leader of the Dominica Labour Party, has been a member of Parliament for the Vielle Case constituency since 2000. He had previously served as chairman of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States and chairman of the Caribbean Community.