Singapore???s Ambassador to Barbados, Kemal Siddique, is interested in helping this country tackle communicable and non-communicable diseases.
He expressed this recently during a courtesy call on Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Steven Blackett.
The Ambassador said Singapore???s School of Public Health could provide technical assistance to Barbados and the Caribbean in the areas of HIV/AIDS and diabetes.
Pointing out that his country saw non-communicable diseases in a holistic manner, and that the most important element in health management was data, Ambassador Siddique said: ???We want to know what we can do to get public health in the Caribbean working together in a digitalised way. That is the key to everything. The international community is already digitalised.???
Assistance was also offered in areas such as diplomacy and oceanographics.??The Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade welcomed the offers, and acknowledged that Barbados had benefited from various scholarships and training through the Singaporean Small Island Developing States Technical Programme (SIDSTECH).
He said: ???That is an aspect we have pushed for. We have profited from areas of e-governance, investment and trade facilitation, as well as natural disaster management and mitigation. We look forward very much to our students and employees benefiting from your programmes.?????
Barbados and Singapore established diplomatic relations on December 19, 1996.
joy-ann.gill@barbados.gov.bb