MONROVIA – Ambassador Chad Blackman, Senior Advisor to the Director General of the ILO, and former Ambassador of Barbados to the UN & Other International Organizations in Geneva, Switzerland, has been appointed Minister of Economic Affairs and Senator by Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley.
Ambassador Blackman is also a founding and an active Member of the Organizing Committee of the Sankofa Pilgrimage to Barbados, which will be held in Barbados from 6 to 13 May, 2024.
The Ambassador, a friend of Ambassador Witherspoon, Founder of the Sankofa Pilgrimage, played a pivotal role in the research leading to the publication of Portes Find A New Home in Liberia, the first ever published account of any of the 346 Barbadians that emigrated to Liberia from Barbados in 1865.
Ambassador Witherspoon’s great grandfather, John Prince Porte, was among others who settled in Crozierville with their families following their arrival in Liberia, and was instrumental in the erection of Christ Episcopal Church, named after the parish in Barbados where many of them lived prior to their emigration.
It was Ambassador Blackman who facilitated the meeting in 2021 between Ambassador Witherspoon and Prime Minister Mottley at the official Residence of the Prime Minister, Ilaro Court, when she asked Ambassador Witherspoon to arrange, in collaboration with the Government of Barbados, for the pilgrimage to Barbados of descendants of the families of the Brig Cora to the land of their ancestors, and the reunion with their families still on the island.
During that meeting, the Prime Minister was shocked to learn that, despite two members of the group of Barbadians who emigrated to Liberia serving as presidents of Liberia (one born in Barbados and one in Liberia, Edwin and Arthur Baarclay), there were no diplomatic relations between the two countries. She then instructed her Minister of Foreign Affairs to initiate actions to rectify that. The two countries have since exchanged Notes and tacitly agreed to establish diplomatic relations.
This is all the result of the enablement by Ambassador Blackman.
The Honourable Chad Blackman, LLB, LLM, ACIArb was born on October 27, 1982, and raised in Vauxhall, Christ Church. He attended the Vauxhall Primary School (now Shirley Chisholm Primary), and thereafter the Christ Church Foundation School.
Driven by a sense of civic and community engagement, he became the Parish Ambassador of Christ Church, and later the President of the Barbados Youth Development Council. He joined the Barbados Labour Party in 2002 and was elected President of the League of Young Socialists. He was also the CARICOM Youth Ambassador of Barbados, where he championed the cause of the CARICOM Single Market & Economy (CSME) amongst young people across CARICOM.
Upon moving to the United Kingdom in 2010, he worked as a Youth Development Consultant at the Commonwealth Secretariat, and later read for the LLB Law and LLM International Trade Law, respectively, and joined the Inner Temple. Specialising in international trade law, and data protection law, he later joined Global Partners International in St. Lucia as lead consultant in these areas.
In the historic 2018 general election, he served as the Campaign Manager for the constituency of St. John. In October of that year, he was appointed at the age of 35, as Barbados’ Ambassador to the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva, including the World Trade Organization. His mandate increased, and became Ambassador to the UN at Vienna and Rome, and was Ambassador to Switzerland, Austria, Hungary and Serbia (the first of the latter two). He held various positions during his tenure, including; Chair of the CARICOM Group, Co-ordinator of the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the UN, Chair of the Trade and Development, and Trade and Environment Committees respectively in the WTO; the 1st Chair of Curaçao’s Accession to the WTO; and the Vice-President of United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). In 2022, he was appointed President of the Group of 77 (G77) and China and served on the Global Board of the UN International Gender Champions.
In October 2022, he was appointed Senior Advisor to the new Director-General of the International Labour Organization (ILO) and serves in his CABINET. He held CABINET responsibility for Latin America and the Caribbean, the African Continent, Arab States and the United Nations, the organization’s external relations, Legal Department, and ILO’s Administrative Tribunal.
Minister Blackman is fluent in French.
The appointment means that Ambassador Blackman would be leaving Geneva and returning to Barbados soon, providentially putting him at the center of the Sankofa Pilgrimage to Barbados in May (although he had planned to be there anyhow).
In 2023, Ambassador Blackman consented to becoming a member of the Board of The Africa Barbados Heritage Initiative (TABHI).
The Barbadian families in Liberia, indeed, all Liberians, heartily congratulate Ambassador Blackman on his appointment and look forward to mutual support and enhanced collaboration.