Prime Minister Briceno Returns from UN General Assembly, Reports Successes and Meets with Belizean Diaspora

Prime Minister John Briceno returned from New York, USA, today and gave an exclusive report to Love News on the successes of his business trip.  PM Briceno led a delegation to the United Nations General Assembly where he spoke to global leaders on climate change and other global challenges faced by developing countries like Belize.  In addition to his presence at the UN’s meeting, Briceno had several other meetings that saw him meet up with members of the Belize Diaspora who were able to receive their immigration documents through a mobile clinic held in New York.

John Briceño, Prime Minister of Belize: “I think it was a very successful four days I think that was spent in New York. This year they are going to have two major addresses to the United Nations. One we have the address to the General Assembly that’s done every year. But this year we had another important address which is the one for the summit for the future which is addressing what’s going to happen after we finish the Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs. We have to start to think about post 2030. And one of the things that Belize is talking a lot about is about what are we going to do with our young people? What are the challenges that young people are facing? What is it that they want to do with issues of education, about health, about job, about house? Now it was a five minute speech so we had to be very compact and we tried to address the most important issues that we believe that we would have to address post 2030. Apart from that, you know, usually we had a number of meetings. One on the issue of climate change, which I attended, I co-sponsored that group. And there we got a small grant of $300,000 that we could use to help to do small projects when it comes to issues of climate change. We also took over the chairmanship of SIDS, Small Island Developing States. Now Belize has the chairmanship, as the Prime Minister, I took over that chairmanship. We had a number of bilateral meetings and other meetings, so it was just simply meeting after meeting. But overall, I think it was a very successful trip.”

Reporter: I understand that you were able to assist over a hundred Belizeans with finally receiving their, I think their documents in terms of nationality. Tell us about that. 

John Briceño, Prime Minister of Belize: “Again, that was very exciting and I was very pleased that we can do that. The diaspora, in many instances, they believe that we don’t give them enough attention. And for too long, they believe that they give but they don’t get much in return. But we want to be able to reach out to the diaspora, making them feel that they are truly a part of what we’re doing in Belize. And so we took the opportunity, we had a passport clinic in New York about two months ago and so I took the opportunity of being there to hand over some passports. And we also handed, we had some nationalities by descent for Belizean whose children were born in the United States. So it’s a total of over 100 of them. I did not give to all of them, just a few when they were there because you know I had to go back to work. So again, that was also a good feeling moment.”

Whilst in the US, Prime Minister Briceno was able to be a part of his wife’s recognition at the Global Power Women Conference (GPWC) 2024.  Rossana Briceno was given the Global Female Empact Leadership Award which recognizes global first ladies who have made a significant impact on a global scale through their strategic and compassionate leadership.  Today, Prime Minister expressed pride and gratitude for her hard work and all those women who work in addressing the marginal and vulnerable populations.

John Briceño, Prime Minister of Belize: “I’m very proud of the work that Rosanna is doing as a special envoy for families and children. Rosanna has been an educator all her adult life and a special emphasis on special education. And since she came in she has been working on many different challenges we’re facing; young people, children in schools, special education, families, meeting with women, the indigenous people, all the way down south in their communities, talking to them about their rights and what is it that they should be able to aspire to and to be as Belizean women. And this group, this Women Global Alliance, what they do, they look at the different work of first ladies or first spouse of leaders around the world. In the region they chose three of us. They chose Rosanna from Belize, they chose the wife of the President of Paraguay, Mrs. Peña, and also they’ve chosen to give an award to Mrs. Ali, the wife of President Ali from Guyana. So I’m very proud of our women that they are being recognized worldwide. And of course, Rosanna in particular, in Belize with the little budget that she would get that she has been doing exciting work, sterling work, work  that goes into the communities and working with women and with the boys and girls and trying to find ways how we can help them.”