The Government of St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG), the Embassy of the Republic of China (Taiwan) in SVG, and the U.S. Embassy in Barbados, the Eastern Caribbean, and the OECS co-hosted a Global Cooperation and Training Framework (GCTF) seminar at the Kingstown Baptist Church on June 6.
The theme of the seminar was “Tending to Tomorrow’s Talents Today: Technical and Vocational Training Tools and Techniques for Developing States in the Caribbean and Latin America”.
Peter Sha-Li Lan, ambassador of Taiwan to SVG, Linda Taglialatela, Ambassador of the United States in Barbados, and Montgomery Daniel, deputy minister, of SVG welcomed participants at the seminar, followed by keynote speeches delivered by Camillo Gonsalves, minster of finance, economic planning, and information technology, and Robert Burch, acting center director in USAID’s Center for Education within the Bureau for Development, Democracy and Innovation.
Foreign Minister Keisal Peters and Education Minister Curtis King delivered the closing remarks.
Other cabinet members and high level officials from the government of SVG, Embassy of Taiwan, Embassy of the U.S. and other participants also attened the seminar.
The speakers in the two panel discusssions came from Taiwan, United States, SVG, Barbados, Guatemala, St. Kitts and Nevis, and St. Lucia. There are around 100 in-person participants and over 100 people participated online.
The participants also visited some of the beneficiaries of the bilateral projects implemented jointly by Taiwan and SVG, including ON-SITE and the Women’s Empowerment Projects.
GCTF is a platform established by the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the United States of America on June 1, 2015. It aims to demonstrate Taiwan’s strengths and expertise to address global issues of mutual concern, while enhancing Taiwan’s multilateral cooperation throughout the world.
Over the past eight years, the GCTF has held 55 international workshops on topics such as public health, law enforcement cooperation, women’s empowerment, energy efficiency, e-commerce, cybersecurity, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief (HA/DR), and media literacy.
More than 6,300 government officials, experts, and civil society representatives from 125 countries have participated in these events.
Japan became a full partner of the GCTF framework in 2019 and Australia in 2021.
More like-minded countries such as Sweden, Guatemala, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Canada, Israel, the EU, and Slovakia have joined to cohost GCTF workshops.