ST AUGUSTINE, Trinidad — Professor Nigel Harris, vice chancellor of The University of the West Indies and chairman of the board of the UWI Consulting Company, has announced that Dr Keith Nurse assumed responsibilities as executive director of the UWI Consulting Company, effective August 1, 2013.
UWI Consulting is the entity through which the UWI provides consulting services regionally and internationally. He will be assisted by deputy director Professor Claremont Kirton as they work to strengthen UWI Consulting as a dynamic portal through which the expertise of UWI faculty, alumni and affiliates can be accessed for consultancies in a wide variety of areas.
Prior to joining UWI Consulting, Nurse served as a consultant and advisor to several governments and regional organizations, including the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Caribbean Export Development Agency and the Caribbean Tourism Organization. He also served previously at international organizations including the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Organization of American States and the Commonwealth Secretariat. He is the incumbent World Trade Organization Chair at The UWI and former Director of the Shridath Ramphal Centre for International Trade Law, Policy and Services, UWI, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados.
He has published scholarly articles and books on a broad range of topics including global political economy, diasporas, creative economy and climate change, and served on the Editorial Boards of several academic journals. Nurse is a former president of the Association of Caribbean Economists and a founding member of the recently established World Economics Association.
Kirton is professor of development economics in the Department of Economics at The UWI’s Mona campus, Jamaica. His academic research and policy oriented analytical work are concentrated on issues related to Caribbean economic development. He has researched and published in the area of banking and finance, dealing with indigenous banking, non-bank financial intermediaries (credit unions, housing finance institutions), financial sector crises and informal finance. This research work has resulted in numerous peer-reviewed studies, reports and organised activities on issues of major importance for the Jamaican economy and the wider Caribbean region.
Kirton has provided advisory and consulting services to regional and international agencies such as the Inter-American Development Bank, Caribbean Development Bank, United Nations EconomIc Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Bank, and the European Union.
The UWI Consulting Company was formed in 2008 and is registered in Jamaica and Saint Lucia.