Honourable Hugh Hilton Todd Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation participates in the Raisina Dialogue 2022
The Honourable Hugh Hilton Todd, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, participated in India’s Raisina Dialogue 2022, which was held from 25-27 April 2022 in New Delhi.
The Raisina Dialogue is India’s flagship conference on geopolitics and geoeconomics that is held annually and is organized by the Ministry of External Affairs in collaboration with the Observer Research Foundation (ORF). This was its 7th edition. Dialogue 2022 was designed as an in-person conference with multiple formats which included a Young Fellows Programme, Ministerial Rooms, and Roundtables. The theme for this year’s conference was “Terra Nova: Impassioned, Impatient, and Imperiled. During the conference high officials from several countries around the world engaged in discussions on pressing global issues and challenges with the aim to develop and find solutions.
As a special invitee to the Raisina Dialogue, the Honourable Minister participated in two panel discussions during which he shared Guyana’s perspective on the various themes. The first discussion was done under the theme: “World War(m) III: Adaptation and Disaster Resilience”. In this discussion, the Honourable Minster was joined by His Excellency Richard Randriamandrato, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Madagascar and Mr. Mohamed Nasheed, Speaker of Parliament and former President of the Maldives.
The second panel discussion was done under the theme: “Beachheads of Globalisation: Investments, Debts and Aspirations”. During this discussion, Minister Todd expounded on the fact that small states such as Guyana, were burdened with many challenges after gaining independence and they were left to catch up with the world, while the world would have moved on. He said that the G20 countries are the primary beneficiaries of Economic Globalization and they are the ones who have been responsible for the plight of the global environment. After sharing Guyana’s action plan and its contributions toward the mitigation of Climate Change, the Honourable Minister noted that small states such as Guyana have been forced to deal with their own economic challenges as well as those challenges to which they did not contribute. He noted that the issue affecting the global environment should be dealt with at the multilateral level with those countries who are largely responsible.
While in India, Minister Todd also held wide-ranging bilateral discussions with His Excellency Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Minister of External Affairs of India. During the bilateral discussion Minister Todd and Minister Jaishankar spoke about current and future collaborative initiatives between the Governments of Guyana and India which included heath, education, diplomatic training, infrastructure, agriculture, and ICT. The Ministers also discussed cooperation and the strengthening of regional institutions and recovery efforts to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Before departing India, Minister Todd took the opportunity to hold bilateral talks with His Excellency Santiago Cafiero, Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Worship of Argentina, who is also a participant in this year’s Dialogue. Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation