Named the PJ Patterson Centre for Africa-Caribbean Advocacy, a center designed to coordinate public policy and advocacy by fostering development relations between the Caribbean and Africa was launched at The University of the West Indies last Friday.
Patterson challenged a proposal of dialogue at the level of the heads of government to agree on a common agenda and to initiate a program of international cooperation among countries in Africa and its global diaspora of people of African descent.
He added that the world is looking for justice and for a new sensibility and certainly, and coincidentally the people of the Caribbean are looking for a new relationship with ancestral Africa.
According to Sir Hilary, The UWI, as part of the re-visioning of the 21st Century Caribbean, has established centers in other countries, among them one in China dealing with software engineering; Brock University Canada on Canada /Caribbean relations; and the State University of New York dealing with USA joint programs for development.
“The 21st Century is going to be about the rekindling and the rebuilding of bridges with the African continent which is a critical part of Caribbean civilization, which has been the basis of our sense of popular identity, and so we have also established a center at The University of Lagos and at the University of Johannesburg — the Centre for Global Africa.
