PM Dickon Mitchell at MEDays Forum: Calls for revamped Multilateralism to tackle climate, trade, tech challenges

Grenada: Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell, during the 16th edition of the highly anticipated MEDays Forum in Morocco, addressed significant issues surrounding climate, trade and technology. 

He delivered a keynote address on the theme: “Reinventing Multilateralism for a Multipolar World: Climate, Trade, and Technology.”

Talking about himself and his colleagues including Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit of Dominica and Prime Minister Philip J Pierre of Saint Lucia, Mitchell said that they all come from small island developing states and the climate change is the biggest challenge that SIDS come through. 

“And we need more multilateralism not less to tackle and solve this challenge that we are on the front line of so in its historical context in a sense,” he outlined. 

PM Mitchell added that modern multilateralism is largely attributed to the institutions that were created after World War 2.

He noted that this was to address the issues that the world was grappling with after the war to foster regional and world peace, encourage dialogue among nations, encourage negotiation and cooperation amongst nations and while all of these goals are very much still relevant, today the question is whether the institutions which were formed after the war are still relevant and capable of addressing the issues being faced by the global south.

While calling upon the world to do real actions instead of just talking, the Grenadian leader noted, “I've highlighted three of them climate trade and Technology because we can look at the issue of climate coming out of the UN multilateral system we have for example the Paris climate agreement we have repeatedly held COP conferences that have produced what I style megawatts of talk, megawatts of a FL of activities around the hosting of the conferences but very little electricity in terms of real action and in terms of real financing.”

He further said that if multilateralism if done fairly and correctly it can be and cited an example when the world faced global pandemic. 

“The Co-Vaccine initiative which allowed ultimately for covid-19 vaccines to be delivered worldwide and I said ultimately because initially if you pay attention you would have seen that it was unilateralism, nationalism and rivalry that drove the initial response to covid-19 countries were seeking to get vaccines for their citizens or their native Citizens First to the exclusion of migrants or immigrants but it's only when reality stepped in that you could not insulate your country from the rest of the world that Common Sense prevailed and a multilateral approach to the dissemination of vaccines worked and partly largely contributed to the world ultimately being able to address the covid-19 crisis,” he said. 

In his address, he further emphasised multilateral successes such as the Paris Climate Agreement (2015), where nearly 200 countries united to combat climate change as well as the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), a regional initiative designed to foster economic growth and integration across Africa.

He used these examples to state the critical crossroads faced SIDS, noting that climate change is accelerating, economic inequities are deepening, and the digital revolution has outpaced the SIDS’ capacity to govern it. These unprecedented challenges, he emphasised, call for a new approach towards multilateralism that prioritises equity, sustainability, and partnership.