By Gordon French
Caribbean Net News Guyana Correspondent
Email: gordon@caribbeannetnews.com
GEORGETOWN, Guyana: Coordinating Director of the Trinidad-based Caribbean Meteorological Organization, Tyrone Sutherland, is seeking re-election as Second Vice-President of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the UN Specialized Agency that coordinates global activity in weather, water, climate and related aspects of the environment.
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| Coordinating Director of the Trinidad-based Caribbean Meteorological Organization, Tyrone Sutherland |
The election takes place at the Fifteenth Congress of the WMO in Geneva , Switzerland from May 7 to 25, with elections on May 17. The Congress will approve the scientific and technical programmes and activities of the Organization to be carried out across the world over the next four years.
It will also appoint the secretary general to lead the Organization, as well as its non-resident president, three vice-presidents and an executive council that will, along with the secretary general, oversee the affairs of the WMO over the next four years.
Over the past four years, the WMO president came from Russia, the first vice-president from Iran and the third vice-president from Argentina .
A native of St Lucia, Sutherland who was first elected unanimously at the 2003 WMO Congress has the full support of the Member States of the Caribbean Meteorological Organization in his re-election bid. The CMO is the specialized CARICOM agency that coordinates the joint scientific and technical activities in weather, water, climate and related sciences in 16 English-speaking Caribbean countries.
As the WMO's second vice-president, Sutherland also serves as chairman of the influential WMO panel of experts on technical cooperation, a body that influences where and how technical cooperation funds are allocated around the world.
Sutherland indicated that he intends to continue the push for the improvements in the capabilities of the meteorological services in developing countries, with special considerations to be given to the vulnerable least developed countries and the Small Island Developing States (SIDS).
According to the CARICOM secretariat, Sutherland is the first former staff member of the WMO ever to be elected in such a capacity. He was the head of the St. Lucia Meteorological Service until the early 1980s, then served the Canadian Weather Service for ten years as a senior meteorologist and severe storms specialist.
In 1992, he joined the WMO in Geneva as a Scientific Officer in its Tropical Cyclone Programme, and was subsequently appointed as the executive assistant to the secretary general. In 1999, he was appointed by the Caribbean governments as the Coordinating Director of the CMO, following which he was immediately elected as a member of the WMO Executive Council, then in 2003 as its second vice-president.
This has greatly increased the influence of the English-speaking Caribbean in the affairs of the WMO, and strengthened the collaboration of the WMO and CMO for the benefit of the meteorological services in the Caribbean. | 
