The Bahamas Has Punched Above its Weight in International Systems for 53 Years

NASSAU, The Bahamas -- Prime Minister and Minister of Finance the Hon. Phillip Davis said The Bahamas has fewer than 400,000 people, but it has punched above its weight in the international system for 53 years and intends to continue doing so.

"We are now a member of the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law; we have secured the adoption of the Multidimensional Vulnerability Index; we have established diplomatic relations with 23 new States across Africa, the Pacific, the Gulf and Latin America," the Prime Minister said in a video address at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Bahamas Alrae Ramsey Institute of Foreign Affairs 2025 & 2026 Commencement Ceremonies at the University of The Bahamas on Wednesday, April 29, 2026.

He said these are not the footprints of a small state but the footprints of a country that has decided its size does not define its ambition.

The Prime Minister told the 2025 & 2026 Cohorts that he expects them to represent the whole country, carry out the country's agenda faithfully: climate justice, parity justice and economic justice, while safeguarding the integrity of the service.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs the Hon. Fred Mitchell said the Institute was created to supplement the native intelligence persons bring to a job, and throughout their careers, foreign service officers will be rotated to different areas to gain experience.

The Director General of Foreign Affairs, Jerusa Ali said climate diplomacy remains the nation's first-order foreign policy.

"Eighty percent of this country's landmass sits within one metre of sea level. Our negotiators at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, at the International Maritime Organization, at the loss-and-damage mechanisms our region fought to establish, carry a single brief- hold the line on adaptation, mitigation and resilience, and press, without tiring, for a climate finance architecture calibrated to vulnerability. You will be asked, in your turn, to hold that line."

The Director General told the graduates that they will be asked to win the candidatures the Ministry is now fielding.

"A non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council for the 2032 to 2033 term. And a Deputy Secretary Generalship of the International Telecommunication Union. Campaigns of that order are won across the relationships, reciprocal support and quiet credibility that precede the vote. The officers entering the Service tonight are the ones who will have to carry those relationships. Start early. Be strategic."

She said, "You will be asked to strengthen our multilateral footing - at the United Nations, at the Organization of American States, at CARICOM, CELAC and the Association of Caribbean States, at the Commonwealth - and to build, more deliberately than this region has managed so far, the South-South partnerships that a changing order requires: on food security, on public health, on technology, and on artificial intelligence. These are the platforms by which a country of our size converts exposure into agenda setting and influence."

The Director General said, "And you will be asked, above all, to serve Bahamians. The student stopped at a port of entry. The family displaced by a hurricane. The national in distress in a city half a world away. Consular work is the part of this profession the cameras do not film. It is the part by which our citizens will judge us. Answer the call. Follow it up. Do the work that happens before the file reaches anyone more senior than you. The country will know."