Credit: https://twitter.com/cokehamilton /  Pamela Coke-Hamilton is new  Executive Director of the International Trade Centre (ITC).

By Gary Raynaldo      DIPLOMATIC  TIMES

UNITED NATIONS –  NEW YORK –  UN Secretary-General António Guterres Friday announced the appointment of Jamaican Pamela Coke-Hamilton as the Executive Director of the International Trade Centre (ITC). The ITC is  the joint agency of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the World Trade Organization (WTO), for trade and international business development.  Coke-Hamilton  succeeds Arancha González Laya of Spain in the position. Currently Director of the Division on International Trade and Commodities at UNCTAD,  Coke-Hamilton has wide experience in trade-related capacity-building and sustainable development, having served with the Jamaican Government, the Caribbean Forum (CARIFORUM) Member States in trade negotiations and multilateral institutions, including the Organization of American States and InterAmerican Development Bank.  She previously served as executive director of the Barbados-based Caribbean Export Development Agency, strengthening the capacity of private sector and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) through investment promotion.  Coke-Hamilton is a strong proponent of gender equality and mainstreaming in trade, having established the Women Empowered through Export (WeXport) platform to address the disadvantages women owned firms experience in accessing markets. 

Coke-Hamilton will be leading the organization at a pivotal moment given the catastrophic impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has unleashed on the global trading system, particularly on MSMEs in developing countries, with ITC required to play a vital role in assisting in building stronger and more resilient businesses and countries, the UN said in a statement.

Credit: unctad.org/ Pamela Coke-Hamilton 

She holds a Juris Doctor in Law from Georgetown University and an undergraduate degree in International Relations from the University of the West Indies.  She is fluent in English, advanced in French with a working knowledge of Spanish.

Credit: sflcn.com/ Pamela Coke-Hamilton 

Coke-Hamilton is Caribbean trade expert who focuses on International Trade and Commodities. She began her career in Jamaica’s Ministry of Foreign Affair and Foreign Trade. She was Director of Trade, Tourism and Competitiveness of the OAS from 2007  to 2009.  In 2008 she gave evidence to the United States International Trade Commission about Caribbean trade.  She warned in 2019 that of concerning the lose-lose trade war that was emerging between the USA and China. It was damaging to all the consumers involved and it “compromises the stability of the global economy and future growth.”