News Releases

UWI Diplomatic Academy to Conduct Timely, New Training in Energy Diplomacy

For Release Upon Receipt - July 29, 2022

St. Augustine


ST. AUGUSTINE, Trinidad and Tobago.  Friday 29 July, 2022 – The University of the West Indies (The UWI) Diplomatic Academy of the Caribbean (DAOC) is set to further enhance its teaching programme by offering a first of its kind online training module from August 2nd - 5th, entitled Energy Diplomacy: Foreign and Security Policy Contexts in the Caribbean. The module is being hailed as yet another step in the DAOC’s rollout of new training, with 18 mostly Foreign Ministry and Energy Ministry officials from some Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member states comprising the inaugural cohort.         

“This Diplomatic Academy Energy Diplomacy module’s content and thrust are informed by contemporary, real-world energy security and energy transition issues,” said DAOC Manager, Dr. Nand C. Bardouille. He noted, “Those issues are among the most pressing policy-related challenges confronting global, hemispheric, regional and national-level policy-makers. With its global outlook and Caribbean perspective, this module will provide important and timely insights into pertinent real-world debates germane, inter alia, to the smaller and developing countries of the Caribbean region.”    

Professor Anthony T. Bryan — an expert energy consultant specializing in energy diplomacy, energy security and energy geopolitics — will take the lead in teaching the module. 

It brings together a state of the art conceptual and real-world oriented learning framework, which initially elucidates foundational themes and disciplinary perspectives regarding the study of energy diplomacy and energy security. On this basis, Professor Bryan will call attention to the new global energy landscape. Coverage will shift to energy diplomacy-centric comparative analyses and special cases, either configured around regions or clusters of large developed and developing countries. Focus will be on key actors, structures and processes. In this regard, emphasis will be placed on discerning the wider significance of energy diplomacy practice for the Caribbean region.  

The teaching programme also incorporates guest lectures and a panel of experts. The guest lectures, which will be delivered by experts drawn from academia and policy circles, will variously cover the following subject matter: (i) the role of oil and gas in the Caribbean and (ii) energy diplomacy in a time of energy transition, with respective presentations taken up with the global policy dimensions of climate change and associated Caribbean regional priorities, scaling up renewable energy in the Eastern Caribbean, and carbon capture and storage in the Caribbean. 

The panel of experts — drawn from an energy sector industry association, the think tank community, academia and diplomatic practice — will debate the future of energy diplomacy in the Caribbean. One final guest lecture, which will examine the emergence of Guyana as a major oil producer, will cap off this roundtable. 

Much of the module’s final day will centre on a capstone exercise, whose focus will be on the development of national or regional plans for energy diplomacy and energy security. In this way, while still in the module setting and driving the exercise, participants will be afforded an opportunity to apply knowledge gained. 

Once the Diplomatic Academy delivers this Energy Diplomacy module, its 2021 – 2022 academic year draws to a close. To access the DAOC Academic Curriculum: 2022 – 2023 Academic Year, please click here. 

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About the Diplomatic Academy of the Caribbean (DAOC) 

The DAOC is the Caribbean's premier professional development-oriented diplomatic studies centre. An integral part of The University of the West Indies' (UWI) Institute of International Relations (IIR), it was established in 2014. The DAOC has a primary teaching mandate in the area of diplomatic studies, offering short, highly specialized training modules in the broad field of diplomatic studies. For Caribbean professionals seeking to expand their capabilities to advance an international career, the DAOC is a trusted educational partner. Combining a world-class suite of curricular offerings, which align with topical policy and learning trends, with a programme of advocacy and partnerships regarding the relationship between diplomacy and the Caribbean, the Diplomatic Academy provides a unique setting for stakeholders to deepen diplomatic skills/knowledge and enhance policy expertise. 

The DAOC has yielded substantial and complementary benefit to the IIR, which was established in 1966 by agreement between the Government of Trinidad and Tobago and the Government of Switzerland. 

Integral to the DAOC's mission is its commitment to help close human resources capacity gaps in international affairs and diplomacy in the Caribbean, by providing capacity-building and skills development training in diplomacy to up and coming diplomats and to aspiring diplomats from the Caribbean Region. This diplomatic learning and training facility also strengthens the University's capacities for research/analysis, knowledge‐sharing, advocacy, and partnerships and dialogue on the relationship between diplomacy and the Caribbean broadly conceived, with the goal of helping to facilitate policy-relevant awareness-raising on international affairs issues of import (and that are topical) to the Region. 

The Diplomatic Academy derives its character from its global outlook, real-world impact and Caribbean mindedness which, in sum, constitute The DAOC Advantage™. For more information, please visit:  https://sta.uwi.edu/daoc. 

About The UWI 

The UWI has been and continues to be a pivotal force in every aspect of Caribbean development; residing at the centre of all efforts to improve the well-being of people across the region. 

From a university college of London in Jamaica with 33 medical students in 1948, The UWI is today an internationally respected, global university with near 50,000 students and five campuses: Mona in Jamaica, St. Augustine in Trinidad and Tobago, Cave Hill in Barbados, Five Islands in Antigua and Barbuda and its Open Campus, and 10 global centres in partnership with universities in North America, Latin America, Asia, Africa and Europe. 

The UWI offers over 800 certificate, diploma, undergraduate and postgraduate degree options in Culture, Creative and Performing Arts, Food and Agriculture, Engineering, Humanities and Education, Law, Medical Sciences, Science and Technology, Social Sciences, and Sport. As the Caribbean’s leading university, it possesses the largest pool of Caribbean intellect and expertise committed to confronting the critical issues of our region and wider world. 

Ranked among the top universities in the world, by the most reputable ranking agency, Times Higher Education, The UWI is the only Caribbean-based university to make the prestigious lists. In 2020, it earned ‘Triple 1st’ rankings—topping the Caribbean; and in the top in the tables for Latin America and the Caribbean, and global Golden Age universities (between 50 and 80 years old).  The UWI is also featured among the top universities on THE’s Impact Rankings for its response to the world’s biggest concerns, outlined in the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including Good Health and Wellbeing; Gender Equality and Climate Action. 

For more, visit www.uwi.edu. 

(Please note that the proper name of the university is The University of the West Indies, inclusive of the “The”, hence The UWI.)

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