By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., February 17, 2024 – Minister of Foreign Affairs Fred Mitchell was among the speakers who participated in the Caribbean Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Headquarters at 1030 15th Street. N.W’, Washington, DC., yesterday.
“As The Bahamas and the wider Caribbean face rising electricity prices and the worsening effects of climate change, significant financial support and strong partnerships will be critical to effectively addressing the region’s challenges. By reinforcing ties with global actors such as the United States, The Bahamas and other Caribbean nations can set themselves up for long-term resilience and prosperity,” the Atlantic Council noted in post on Facebook
Other speakers included Barbara Feinstein, U.S. State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary for Caribbean Affairs and Haiti; Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, and Jason Marczak, Atlantic Council Vice President and Senior Director, Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.
According to information gleaned from its website, the Atlantic Council is a nonpartisan organization that galvanizes US leadership and engagement in the world, in partnership with allies and partners, to shape solutions to global challenges.
Noting that the Council “promotes constructive leadership and engagement in international affairs based on the Atlantic Community’s central role in meeting global challenges,” the website adds, “The Council provides an essential forum for navigating the dramatic economic and political changes defining the twenty-first century by informing and galvanizing its uniquely influential network of global leaders. The Atlantic Council—through the papers it publishes, the ideas it generates, the future leaders it develops, and the communities it builds—shapes policy choices and strategies to create a more free, secure, and prosperous world.”
Continuing, the website states, “For sixty years, the Atlantic Council has pursued the mission that we have now boiled down to a few words: “Shaping the global future together.” In short, we see our role as advancing and advocating constructive US leadership in the world alongside friends and allies.
“Within a few years of the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty in 1949, voluntary organizations emerged in the member countries of the Alliance to promote public understanding and support for the policies and institutions that would build collective security and peace. This international network of citizens’ associations was bound together formally in 1954 with the creation of the Atlantic Treaty Association.
“In 1961, former Secretaries of State Dean Acheson and Christian Herter, with Will Clayton, William Foster, Theodore Achilles and other distinguished Americans, recommended the consolidation of the U.S. citizens groups supporting the Atlantic Alliance into the Atlantic Council of the United States.
“Throughout the 1960s, the Council produced a series of reports on the state of public opinion towards Alliance member countries and sought to actively educate the public about the need for engagement in international affairs through television commercials (starring Bob Hope), an academic journal, and its newsletter. In 1967, the Council produced its first edited volume, Building the American – European Market: Planning for the 1970s. By 1975, the Council was producing numerous policy papers, books, monographs, and other works with the help of international practitioners and had expanded the scope of its work to include environmental management and the relationship between Japan and the West.
“In 1979, Atlantic Council Vice-Chairman Theodore Achilles, recognizing the need to formally reach out to young leaders, established the Committee on Education and the Successor Generations. He wanted future policymakers to understand the solidarity required among people of good conscience if they were to build a better world. In 1980, the Council began to host mid-career professionals for a one-year fellowship, in order to provide opportunities for government officials, research scholars, business, media and other private sector leaders worldwide to pursue a year of independent study. In 1985, the NATO Information Office opened in conjunction with the U.S. Department of State, in order to focus public attention on issues of importance to the collective security of the United States and its Allies.
“The Council convened a major international conference on rebuilding East-West relations in 1988, featuring speeches by President Ronald Reagan, then-presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Colin Powell, and Brent Scowcroft.
“After the fall of communism, programs began to examine the transition underway in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet states, the long-term impact of the conflicts in the Balkans, efforts toward European integration, and nuclear security. Since 1996, the Council has recognized “Distinguished International Leaders” through its annual awards dinner. In 2004, the Council became the U.S. partner in the British-North American Committee, a group of leaders from business, labor, and academia in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada committed to harmonious, constructive relations among the three countries and their citizens.
“Since its inception, the Council has administered programs to examine political and economic as well as security issues, and to cover Asia, the Americas and other regions in addition to Europe. All its programs are, however, based on the conviction that a healthy transatlantic relationship is fundamental to progress in organizing a strong international system.”
