When the brass bell rang inside the U.N. Security Council chamber on 1 June, it echoed all the way down Brickdam. Guyana—population 800,000, GDP the size of a mid-tier American city—assumed the Council’s rotating presidency for the first time in its history. Ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett unfurled an agenda built around a single idea: insecure development breeds insecurity. President Irfaan Ali will chair the flagship debate on 19 June; the word in Georgetown is that he wants climate finance and small-state resilience on record.
Why Region 4 cares
Most of the 30-odd embassies, NGOs and think-tank desks that will draft follow-up memos sit within a two-kilometre radius of the Parliament Building. “When the Council talks sanctions or peacekeeping, we’re already in the room,” notes a foreign-policy grad at UG. But this month puts local civil-society groups—especially those lobbying for an oil-spill offset fund—face-to-face with the world’s veto powers.
The Georgetown dividend
Tour operators are quietly pitching ‘diplomacy walks’ between State House, St George’s Cathedral and the Pegasus boardwalk. Hoteliers report bookings from visiting delegations, and downtown cafés are tweaking menus for halal and vegan guests. Behind the sparkle is a sober question: can Guyana leverage thirty days of procedural control into long-term coalitions on climate finance?
What to watch next
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A presidential press conference is slated for 25 June to summarise outcomes.
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Civil-society briefings: Youths For Climate will livestream side-events daily.
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Opposition MPs promise to grill the government on travel costs when Parliament reconvenes in July.
In a nation where “international” used to mean cricket tours, the Council gavel is more than symbolism. It is Georgetown’s debut as a small-state convener—and a test of whether Region 4 can translate global visibility into on-the-ground gains.
