Development: Challenges Ahead for Small States -- 2nd Annual York U. Jagan Lecture
Central Bank of Trinidad & Tobago Governor Dr. Winston Dookeran to Discuss Eliminating Latin American/Caribbean Debt, Poverty, Improving Access to Technology

TORONTO, April 13, 2000 -- While leaders from across Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa and Asia meet in Cuba's capital this week for the South Summit -- one of the largest Third World summits in recent years -- Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Basdeo Panday will be among those calling on the world's power-broker nations to forgive debts, increase aid and trade, share new technologies and shift more development-related decision-making to the United Nations and away from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Trinidad & Tobago's Central Bank Governor Dr. Winston Dookeran will pick up on these issues during the second annual Jagan Lecture on Sat., April 15, 7:30 p.m., in Moot Court, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, 4700 Keele St.

Dookeran, whose talk is entitled Development: Challenges Ahead for Small States, is well known as a lecturer, economist, scholar and politician. A graduate of the London School of Economics, Dookeran has lectured in economics at the University of the West Indies, and served as a senior economist at the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. He was the Minister of Planning in the Government of Trinidad and Tobago, and is currently Trinidad and Tobago's Alternate Governor to the Caribbean Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Dookeran was recently appointed Chairman of the Investment Negotiating Committee of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). He is a former Fellow at the Centre for International Affairs at Harvard University where he edited Choices and Change: Reflections on the Caribbean (1996), published by the Inter-American Development Bank.

"We are excited to have Dr. Dookeran share his insights with us on the challenges which lie ahead for developing countries in this era of global competitiveness in which access to technology and information has become essential components and indicators of economic success," said York University English Prof. Frank Birbalsingh, one of the key organizers of this year's lecture.

The Jagan Lecture series was established in March 1999 as a tribute to the late Dr. Cheddi Jagan, former president of Guyana, Caribbean thinker, politician and visionary who helped his country, then called British Guiana, gain independence from Britain in 1966. The lecture series is founded on Jagan's belief that a coordinated international effort and new global human order -- one which emphasized the primacy of human development -- could eradicate world poverty and hunger and bring about social justice for the developing world.

Last year's inaugural lecture was delivered by Janet Jagan, then President of Guyana, and widow of the late Dr. Cheddi Jagan. The lecture was entitled "Cheddi Jagan: The Man and his Vision," and established the tone of the series by presenting an insider's view of the man and his legacy.

The roster of speakers in this lecture series will include thinkers, scholars, activists, writers and visionaries who will be selected from an international community of like commitment and interest in southern hemispheric development issues. The event is jointly organized and sponsored by the Jagan Lectures Planning Committee, Caribbean community, scholars and activists, together with York University's Centre for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean (CERLAC), and York International.

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For more information, visit: http://jagan.org, or contact:

Prof. Frank Birbalsingh
English Dept.
York University
(416) 736-2100, ext. 22036
birbalsi@yorku.ca

Chandra Budhu
Chair, Jagan Lectures Planning Committee
(416) 927-8985
rbudhu@home.com

Ken Turriff
Media Relations
York University
(416) 736-2100, ext. 22086
kturriff@yorku.ca
YU/046/00