With his tour of duty having come to an end, Guyana’s Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva since 2016 has resigned as chair of a key World Trade Organisation Committee (WTO) and in a comment to Stabroek News has voiced concern over the unconcluded elections process here.
Ambassador John Deep Ford on Monday informed the Director General of the WTO that in light of his exit, he would be giving up the chairmanship of the WTO Committee on Agricultural Negotiations.
The Ambassador also said in a statement that he is prepared to continue to work for Guyana in contributing to “advancing the food security and agriculture development of Guyana and the Caribbean. Given the electoral challenges facing my own country right now, I also wish to explore opportunities to contribute to improved governance and national healing”.
In relation to the unconcluded elections, he told Stabroek News “I join the consensus of Guyanese that are disappointed with the instability of our political situation and those who yearn for the electoral results process to be concluded and for Guyana to get back on a path of development that serves all Guyanese”.
An announcement on the WTO’s website said that Ford made the announcement of his resignation during a virtual meeting of the Committee on Agriculture in Special Session, and indicated that his term as Chair will come to an end on June 30. Ford chaired the Committee on Agricultural Negotiations for the last two years and was the first Ambassador from Latin America and the Caribbean to hold the position.
Ford said Guyana’s commitment was always to Chair the Agriculture Negotiations up to the 12th WTO Ministerial Conference in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan in June 2020. However, that has been now postponed for at least one year and since his tour of duty was coming to an end and it was important for the next Chair to establish a new mode of working, taking into consideration the impacts of COVID-19 and the extended time period for negotiations, he felt this was a good time to step down.
Speaking directly on the electoral situation in Guyana, Ford reiterated that there is almost a consensus of disappointment that the March 2nd elections have not yet been completed. He said that despite COVID-19, the uncertainty of not concluding the elections and the ambiguity of the political environment in which everyone has been operating detract from Guyana’s sense of stability and do not encourage investment and dampen dreams of prosperity.
“Guyanese, at home and abroad, are longing for an urgent and credible conclusion to the electoral impasse so that the economic, social and, importantly, the political development of the country can fully resume,” the Ambassador said.
In his remarks the Ambassador also commended former Vice-President Carl Greenidge for having the vision to open a mission in Geneva, Switzerland, which enables Guyana to be actively represented at the World Health Organization, the International Labor Organization, the International Telecommunications Union, the United Nations Human Rights Council, the World Intellectual Property Organization, the World Trade Organization, the International Trade Centre, and many others, all of which have their headquarters in Geneva.
During his tenure in Geneva, Ford represented Guyana to the governments of Finland, Italy and Switzerland.
For most of his working life Ford has been a public servant, either employed in Guyana by the Livestock Development Company (LIDCO), the University of Guyana, and Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) or internationally at the Commonwealth Secretariat and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. He considered his recent stint with the Government of Guyana as a continuation of that service.
The WTO’s committee which the Ambassador chaired consults on the rules governing global trade in agricultural products and is critical to enabling development of a country’s agricultural sector and ensuring its food security.
Prior to serving as the Chair of the Agriculture Negotiations, Ford served as the Chair of the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group in Geneva and coordinated the shared trade positions of the group at the WTO Buenos Aires Ministerial in December 2017.
