A forum on social security and crime prevention was held under the Global Cooperation and Training Framework Oct. 17 in St. Lucia as part of Taiwan’s commitment to working with like-minded partners to enhance social order and counter criminal activity.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the one-day event was organized by the Embassy of the ROC (Taiwan) in St. Lucia and the U.S. Embassy in Barbados, the Eastern Caribbean and the OECS in collaboration with the St. Lucian government. It was the third consecutive year that a GCTF event has been held in the Caribbean ally.
ROC (Taiwan) Ambassador to St. Lucia Peter Chia-yen Chen and Mark Lambert, U.S. State Department China Coordinator and Deputy Assistant Secretary for China and Taiwan, gave opening remarks. Keynote speeches were delivered by Jeremiah Norbert, St. Lucia minister of home affairs, crime prevention and persons with disabilities, and Barbara Feinstein, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Caribbean affairs and Haiti, while the closing remarks were made by St. Lucia Minister for Equity, Social Justice and Empowerment Joachim Henry.
The panels explored root causes, risk factors and prevention of illegal acts, as well as strategies to tackle different types of crime, with prosecutors from Taiwan sharing their experience remotely, the MOFA said. The event was attended by over 190 academics, officials, police officers, opinion and political leaders in person or online, it added.
In his speech, Chen called for like-minded partners to strengthen police and law enforcement cooperation through training and resource sharing to forge a more secure environment for people across the Caribbean. Norbert stressed that security is not only the government’s responsibility, adding that communities, families, enterprises and civil organizations should work together to fight crime at its source.
Since its launch in 2015 by Taiwan and the U.S., GCTF has established a critical platform for facilitating discussion of solutions to global issues. The initiative was later joined by Japan, Australia and Canada, and affiliated events have been held outside the founding countries since 2021. (YCH-E)
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