Speakers
Feature Speaker - Dr. Euric Bobb
Dr. Euric Bobb attended Presentation College, San Fernando where he won the Jerningham Silver Medal in 1960 and the Island Scholarship for Modern Studies in 1962. He read Economics at Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge, graduating with B.A. (Hons.) in 1966 and completing a Ph.D. in 1970.
Dr. Bobb worked as an Economist at the World Bank from 1969 to 1978, including an assignment from 1974 to 1977 as Economic Advisor to the Ministry of Planning in Liberia. He returned to Trinidad and Tobago in February 1978 as Deputy Governor of the Central Bank and served as its Governor from August 1984 to February 1988 when he resigned and joined the staff of the Inter-American Development Bank as a Division Chief and Associate Treasurer. Between 1989 and 1994 he was Deputy Manager with primary responsibility for programming, developing and supervising the implementation of lending and technical assistance programs in the Bahamas, Barbados, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guyana, Jamaica, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela. From late 1994 to retirement in October 2005 he served as Chief of Staff to the President of the IDB. Since November 2008 he has been a Director of BCB Holdings Limited and its subsidiary companies, Belize Bank Limited and Belize Bank International Limited.
While an undergraduate at Cambridge, Dr. Bobb was twice ranked among the top five quarter-milers in the United Kingdom, represented the Combined British Universities and was awarded a “blue” for competition against traditional rivals Oxford University. He was a member of the Trinidad and Tobago team that placed sixth in the final of the 4 x 400 meters relay at the Olympic Games in Mexico City (1968).
In 1994, Dr. Bobb was awarded the Chaconia Medal (Gold) for meritorious public service to Trinidad and Tobago.
Session 1: Review of the Economy
Mr. Bert van Selm
Bert van Selm is the new IMF Resident Representative in Jamaica. He has been with the IMF since 2000, working as economist and senior economist on country teams for Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Nigeria, and as deputy division chief in the Fund’s Strategy, Policy and Review department. He also served as the Fund’s Resident Representative in FYR Macedonia from 2006 to 2009. Prior to joining the Fund, van Selm was a lecturer in international economics at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands (1995-1998) and coordinator for IMF affairs at the Dutch Ministry of Finance (1998-2000). He has a PhD in economics from the University of Groningen, also in the Netherlands. He has published numerous articles and one book: The Economics of Soviet Break-up (Routledge, 1997).
Session 5: Poverty & Sustainable Livelihood
Ms. Sherry Ann S. Ganase
Ms. Sherry Ann S Ganase is presently a full time student at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine campus pursing her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Economics, with research interest in climate change. She graduated from The UWI with an MSc in Economics and B.Sc. (First Class Honours) in Economics and Business Management. Sherry Ann is currently a research associate in the International Community-University Research Alliance (ICURA) project entitled “Managing Adaptation to Environmental Change in Coastal Communities: Canada and the Caribbean”.
Ms. Ganase presented her first paper as a co-author entitled “An Assessment of Factors impacting Vulnerability and Resilience in Caribbean Coastal Communities; A Proposed Vulnerability Framework” at the Conference on the Sustainable Development of Coastal Communities: Challenges and Solutions in June 2011. Upon completion of the Masters, she presented the findings of her research paper at the XLII (43rd) Annual Conference of Monetary Studies in Hilton Barbados in November 2011 and at The University College of the Cayman Islands Caribbean conference: 50-50-Surveying the Past, Mapping the Future in March 2012 which led to the publication of her first paper. Sherry Ann was also given the opportunity to be one of twenty students in the world to partake in the Sixth Environmental and Resource Economics Training Course- Water and Climate Change in Costa Rica, and Belpasso International Summer School on Environmental Economics titled Sustainable Development: Theory and Measurement Methods in Italy 2012.
Session 7: Deepening Caribbean Regional Integration in the Eclipse of the North Atlantic
Ms. Florence Louis-Edouard
Ms. Florence Louis-Edouard is a Senior Trade expert with 10 years experience in trade and export development, regional integration, private sector development, projects design and implementation, monitoring and evaluation, capacity building, trade in services and trade negotiations, among others.
Louis-Edouard holds a Master’s Degree in International Trade and Geopolitics from the French National Institute of International Relations located in Paris. In 2004 she obtained a Master of Science in International Relations from the University of the West Indies for which she submitted her thesis on “Towards the integration of the French Departments of the Americas within their immediate geopolitical environment: From Decentralization to the Post Cotonou Agreement”.
Originally from the French Caribbean island of Martinique, Florence Louis-Edouard has been residing in Trinidad and Tobago for the past ten years. She shares a deep passion for the Caribbean as a whole and more particularly for its regional integration process.
Ms. Louis-Edouard has for the past eight years served the interest of Trinidad and Tobago’s private sector working in various institutions dedicated to developing the Micro, Small and Medium Sized Enterprises. She is currently the Manager, Services Exports at exporTT Limited.
