Mia Mottley

So we keep some and we give to our brothers and sisters in the rest of the region, however small it was.

Dr. Tedros at WHO said, and Uhuru Kenyatta said to me, I want you to meet Strive Masiwa because the African countries have asked him to put together the African Medical Supplies Platform.

And we believe, I was chairing the Caribbean community at the time, and we believe that there may be some opportunities there.

I called Strive.

Next thing we got the Caribbean countries on that platform.

So a country as small as St.

Kitts and Nevis with 38,000, 40,000 people could access goods at the same price as a country of Nigeria with over 200 and something million people.

And it meant that therapeutics, vaccines, equipment, all of that started to come together.

And that the financing would be provided by the AfriXim Bank out of Africa.

Good things happen.

That made a huge difference to us.

Since then, AfriXim Bank decided to come into the region.

They've now signed partnership agreements with all the member states.

They've now opened their first office outside of Africa in Barbados.

And the whole African renaissance in the Caribbean in the last few years has been growing.

I mean, when we came to office, I said to the population, we want a project called Reclaiming Our Atlantic Destiny.

We were defined by Middle Passage coming across.

Well, we're gonna reclaim it now.

I told you about the 1661 slave code.

We have a duty now to shape the world in a way that makes sense for us.