The Honorable Billie Antoinette Miller Deputy Prime Minister Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of Barbados

"Managing Foreign Policy in an Interdependent World"

Wertheim Performing Arts Center ~ University Park
Florida International University
Monday, November 26, 2001, 7:00 PM

Hon. Billie Miller was educated at Queen’s College in Barbados, King’s College, Durham University, and the Council of Legal Education in England. She was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1968 and to the Bar of Barbados in 1969 and was a practicing attorney from 1969-1976 and 1987-1994. She was appointed Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1994 and was also charged with the responsibility of Leader of the House of Assembly. Since 1999 she has been the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade.

Ms. Miller’s political career dates back to the 1970s. She was first elected as a member of Parliament in 1976 and was the first woman to sit in the Cabinet of Barbados. Over the past twenty-five years, she has held the ministerial portfolios of Health and National Insurance, Education and Culture, Foreign Affairs and International Business and Tourism and International Transport. Following the 1986 General Elections, Ms. Miller was appointed to the Senate where she served as Leader of Opposition Business.

Very active in the civic and non-governmental arena, she has been Chairperson (the first woman) of the Executive of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, and of the Inter-American Development Bank’s Women in Development Unit; President of the International Planned Parenthood Federation/Western Hemisphere Region; Vice-President of the Inter-American Parliamentary Group on Population and Development, and President of the African, Caribbean, and Pacific States Council of Ministers. She was also a member of the International Planned Parenthood Federation / Central Council and the UN Population Fund’s Advisory Panel of Activities Concerning Women.

Currently she is the Chairperson of the Association of Caribbean States’ Ministerial Council; President of the Board of Directors of the Inter-American Parliamentary Group on Population and Development for the Caribbean and Latin-America; Chairperson of the Inter-American Development Bank’s Advisory Council on Women in Development; and Vice-Chairperson of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group.