Sir Alister Mc Intyre OCC, OM, CC - Chairman, Division of Social Sciences, 1964-1967

Sir Alister McIntyre was born in St. George’s, Grenada and educated at the Grenada Boys Secondary School, the London School of Economics and Political Science with first class honours, and pursued graduate studies at Nuffield College, Oxford University, in the United Kingdom.

 

On graduating from university, he returned to the Caribbean and began an academic career, taking up the post of Lecturer in Economics at the Mona Campus. Over the next ten years, he held the posts of Senior Lecturer in Economics, Chairman, Division of Social Sciences at the St Augustine Campus, and in 1967, was promoted to Director of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (now the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies). During this period, Sir Alister also held several visiting Academic Appointments, among them Assistant Professor at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University in the USA, and Fulbright-Hays Fellow at Columbia University in New York.

 

In 1974, Sir Alister was appointed Secretary-General of CARICOM and so began his distinguished service in the regional and international field, spanning the years to 1987. During this period, he also held the positions of Director of the Commodities Division of UNCTAD; promoted to Deputy Secretary General of UNCTAD, both in Geneva, Switzerland; and later transferred to New York to become Assistant Secretary-General in the Office of the Director General for International Economic Cooperation at the United Nations Headquarters.

 

In 1988, Sir Alister was appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University of the West Indies, a post which he held until his retirement in 1998. At the request of the CARICOM Heads of Government, he then assumed the post of Chief Technical Advisor at the newly established Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery until 2001.

 

Sir Alister’s Regional and International Public Service assignments are too many to record on this occasion.  Suffice it to say that, as a result, he has received honours and awards, to quote one commentator:  “numerous as the glittering gems of morning dew”,  among them:  several Honorary Degrees;  the Order of the Caribbean Community (OCC);  he has been twice honoured by the Government of Jamaica, including the receipt of the Order of Merit (OM) and has also received the National Honours of the Government of Guyana (the Cacique Crown of Honour);  the Gleaner’s Honour Award;  the Chancellor’s 50^th Anniversary