UWI Vice-Chancellor Prof Sir Hilary Beckles has described as historic the visit of Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) president Mauricio Claver-Carone to UWI’s regional headquarters in Jamaica.
The visit, during which a memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed between the two institutions, was Claver-Carone’s first-ever mission to the Caribbean. Beckles said it was impossible to put a value to Claver-Carone’s visit.
He said the MOU was an extension of a previous MOU between the two institutions.
“This MOU focuses on institutional strengthening of the UWI to better enable it to serve the region on all the matters engaging us at the moment – research, teaching and learning, institutional modernisation ranging from issues in respect to digital transformation through to matters of infrastructure in respect to climate change, social justice issues and gender equality, all of these are issues that are relevant to us at the moment. It’s a deepening and expansion of an earlier MOU that had focused on institutional modernisation of this university with the support of IDB funding.
Claver-Carone said the MOU gives UWI access to the resources and knowledge of the IDB.
“We’ve launched a concept called IDB Academy, which allows universities like the UWI in this case with this MOU to access all the research, the profound knowledge and experiences we offer and also to be able to provide support to UWI in regard to 21st-century skills and the digitalisation efforts the university is making, in order to expand its presence.
“I believe this will also open the door to what I hinted to. which is the opportunity for the IDB to become investors in UWI, to help with its financing and financial self-sustainability, which would be a tremendous contribution not only to the university and help it continue to develop top-tier talent, not only for the world but for the region, and also help governments to ease some of their fiscal pressures as they deal with various crises, whether it’s the health crisis of coronavirus or whether it’s the resiliency efforts for the region of the world that’s most susceptible to climate impact.”
Beckles said the UWI has created a first-class global university in a region that has suffered great setbacks, including financial and natural disasters and now the coronavirus pandemic.
“We are trying to rebuild our economies in the context of various headwinds, and the region and the UWI cannot do it alone. This collaboration will get us to where we need to be sustainable.”
Claver-Carone said the pandemic had provided the opportunity for a renaissance for the region.
“I believe what we’ve seen over the last year with covid19 will lead us to renaissance in two areas that deeply affect the Caribbean. One is in the area of digitalisation. We could have spent millions of dollars educating people about the importance of digitalisation, and maybe we would have gotten ten per cent of the results. There’s not a human being today in the world that does not understand the benefits of digitalisation d
