Antigua and Barbuda is a sovereign archipelagic country composed of Antigua, Barbuda, and numerous other small islands. Antigua and Barbuda has a total area of 440 km2, making it one of the smallest countries in the Caribbean. The country is mostly flat, with the highest points on Antigua being in the Shekerley Mountains and on Barbuda the Highlands. The country has a tropical savanna climate, with pockets of tropical monsoon in Antigua's southwest. Its largest city is St. John's.
The politics of Antigua and Barbuda takes place in a framework of a unitary parliamentary representative democratic monarchy, wherein the sovereign of Antigua and Barbuda is the head of state, appointing a governor-general to act as vice-regal representative in the nation. A prime minister is appointed by the governor-general as the head of government, and of a multi-party system; the prime minister advises the governor-general on the appointment of a Council of Ministers. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the two chambers of the Parliament. The bicameral Parliament consists of the Senate and the House of Representatives.
The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is an international financial institution and a specialised agency of the United Nations that works to address poverty and hunger in rural areas of developing countries. It is the only multilateral development organization that focuses solely on rural economies and food security.
Dr. Paulette A. Bethel is a Bahamian diplomat from the Commonwealth of The Bahamas. She started her professional career in 1980 in the international field as Assistant Social Affairs Officer in the Centre for Social Development and Humanitarian Affairs (CSDHA) in Vienna, Austria. She then joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Bahamas) and served in diplomatic posts for long years for her country. She was a Special Adviser to the Office of the President of the Seventieth session of the United Nations General Assembly. She was previously the Permanent Representative of the Bahamas to the United Nations from 4 March 2003 to 31 March 2013. She was the first female Ambassador of The Bahamas to the United Nations. She had also worked as Director of the Department of Fellowships at the Organization of American States (OAS); the first such position for a national of Bahamas.
John William Ashe was an Antiguan diplomat and politician. He was the President of the United Nations General Assembly at its 68th session, which ran September 2013 to September 2014. He was also President of the UNICEF Executive Board in 2012. He served as Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York of Antigua and Barbuda between 1995 and 2004.
The monarchy of Antigua and Barbuda is a system of government in which a hereditary monarch is the sovereign and head of state of Antigua and Barbuda. The current Antiguan and Barbudan monarch and head of state, since 8 September 2022, is King Charles III. As sovereign, he is the personal embodiment of the Crown of Antigua and Barbuda. Although the person of the sovereign is equally shared with 14 other independent countries within the Commonwealth of Nations, each country's monarchy is separate and legally distinct. As a result, the current monarch is officially titled King of Antigua and Barbuda and, in this capacity, he and other members of the Royal Family undertake public and private functions domestically and abroad as representatives of Antigua and Barbuda. However, the King is the only member of the Royal Family with any constitutional role.
Henrietta Holsman Fore is an American government official and business executive who was the executive director of UNICEF from 2018 until 2022. Fore is chairman and CEO of Holsman International, a management, investment, and advisory services company. She served in three presidential appointments under President George W. Bush: Fore was the first woman Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance, the 11th Under Secretary of Management in the Department of State, and the 37th Director of the United States Mint in the U.S. Department of Treasury. She was the presidential appointee for President George H. W. Bush at the United States Agency for International Development.
María Fernanda Espinosa Garcés is an Ecuadorian linguist, poet, politician, and diplomat. Currently, is Executive Director of GWL Voices, an NGO dedicated to achieve a gender-equal multilateral system. She served as an advisor on biodiversity and indigenous peoples (1999-2005) and was the regional director for South America (2005-2007) at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Espinosa Garcés was Ecuador's Minister of Foreign Affairs twice, from 2007 to 2008 and then from 2017 to 2018. She also served as ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations in New York (2008-2009) and Geneva (2014-2017), and as Ecuador's Minister of National Defense (2012-2014). In June 2018, she was elected President of the United Nations General Assembly for the 73rd session by a two-thirds vote of the member states. Espinosa Garcés became the fourth woman in the seventy-three-year history of the United Nations to be elected President of the General Assembly. Besides her political career, she is also a poet and essayist.
Thomas Stelzer is an Austrian diplomat, who served as the Dean and Executive Secretary of the International Anti-Corruption Academy (IACA) until July 2023, when he was suspended by the IACA board on suspicion of corruption.
Carl Bertrand Westerby Roberts CMG was an Antiguan and Barbudan diplomat and was the former High Commissioner of Antigua and Barbuda to the United Kingdom, with concurrent accreditations as Ambassador of Antigua and Barbuda to France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
Asot Anthony Emmanuel Michael was an Antiguan politician who was a member of the Parliament of Antigua and Barbuda, elected from Saint Peter Constituency. He was also the Minister of Tourism, Economic Development, Investment and Energy under Prime Minister Gaston Browne. He had previously been a member of the Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party.
Gaston Alphonso Browne is an Antiguan politician serving as the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda and leader of the Labour Party since 2014. Before entering politics, he was a banker and businessman.
Sir Ronald Michael Sanders is an Antiguan Barbudan diplomat, academic, former broadcast-journalist, and the current Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the United States and to the Organization of American States (OAS) since 2015. He holds the unique distinction of being the first person, since the OAS enlarged its membership in 1962, to serve as Chairman of the Permanent Council of the OAS for an unprecedented three terms. He completed his highly successful third term on December 31, 2023, having played a widely recognized role in guiding the work of the Permanent Council in the peaceful transition of government in Guatemala on 14 January 2024.
Sven Jürgenson is an Estonian diplomat. He served as the Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York of Estonia from 1998 to 2000 and once again from 2015 to 2022. In 2016, he was also the President of the UNICEF Executive Board at the international level. He served as Ambassador to the United States from 2000 to 2003 and as Ambassador to France from 2010 to 2015.
Movses Abelian is an Armenian-Georgian diplomat who has served as Under-Secretary-General for General Assembly and Conference Management and Coordinator for Multilingualism in the United Nations Secretariat since 2019.
Sophia Tesfamariam Yohannes is the Permanent Representative of Eritrea to the United Nations, having presented her credentials to UN Secretary-General António Guterres on September 5, 2019.. She is a Vice President of the 2025 Executive Board of UNICEF.
Rabab Fatima is a Bangladeshi diplomat. She is currently the high representative of the United Nations for the least developed countries, landlocked developing countries and small island developing states (UNOHRLLS). Between 2019 and July 2022, she served as the Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the United Nations. Prior to this, she was Bangladesh Ambassador to Japan. On 1 February 2022, she was elected the Chair of the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission (PBC).
Daryll Sylvester Matthew is an Antiguan and Barbudan politician, representing St. John's Rural South in the Antigua and Barbuda House of Representatives.
Rawdon Nirobi Antonio Turner is an Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party politician, who was elected as Member of Parliament for St. Peter in the by-election held on 14 January 2025 and appointed Minister of Social and Urban Transformation in the government of the Prime Minister Gaston Browne.
Colin V. A. Derrick is a United Progressive Party politician, who was appointed to the Senate of Antigua and Barbuda for the government on 23 March 2004.
