Mia Mottley could have run for Secretary-General of the United Nations. She did not, and on September 27 she explained why.
“I have a country to run and a region to take care of, and I mean that with all sincerity,” the Prime Minister of Barbados said.
She also offered a drier reason.
“I’m not sure that the world wants somebody whose tongue is, might be as heavy as mine,” Mottley said.
Anyone who has watched her at a podium knows what she means. She did not spend the week being diplomatic about the numbers either. Climate-vulnerable nations need roughly $490 billion a year by 2030, she said, and currently receive about $90 billion.
“The math simply ain’t mathing,” Mottley said.
On the Security Council she was just as plain. “Africa, with 54 states, has no permanent seat. This must change.” She also said she is “deeply concerned by the worsening humanitarian pressures facing the people of Cuba.”
Mottley leads a country of fewer than 300,000 people and is one of the most listened-to voices in global climate finance. She is also, by a distance, the most powerful Black woman head of government in this hemisphere.
She was not asked to be modest about the job she has. She said she already has one.
