CARILED appoints successor to Guyanese Naresh Singh

Last Updated on Saturday, 26 December 2015, 21:02 by GxMedia

Alix Yule

Two months after Guyanese Dr. Naresh Singh resigned as Programme Director of the Caribbean Local Economic Development Project (CARILED), he has been replaced by Canadian Alix Yule.

Singh in mid February resigned from CARILED in his failed bid to become the Deputy Secretary General of the 15-nation Caribbean Community (CARICOM) after questions had been raised about his alleged involvement in conflict of interest. Caricom later repudiated Singh’s appointment because information came to light regarding certain allegations against him which had been the subject of a confidential investigation by the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner, which is an independent Agency of the Parliament of Canada.

CARILED’s Trinidad office on Monday warmly welcomed Yule, who will direct the six year CIDA funded Local Economic Development (LED) project within 14 Caribbean countries. 

Ms Yule joins the CARILED team today, and will first be based at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) headquarters in Ottawa, Canada. 

Naresh Singh

Ms Yule brings a wealth of knowledge to CARILED with over 20 years of experience in the field of international development in a number of countries in the Caribbean, Africa and Asia.  She has managed several LED and local governance bilateral projects, and has had extensive experience in Results Based Management. 

She also joins the team at the start of a local area economic profile (LAEP) mission in Trinidad.  The mission will run from April 15 to 26, 2013, and mission teams are made up of Caribbean and Canadian volunteers and consultants, in collaboration with the Ministry of Local Government and relevant stakeholders. 

In January 2013, CARILED completed Local Area Economic Profile (LAEP) missions in five of seven demonstration countries that will be the focus of the first two program phases.   The LAEP missions will continue in Jamaica and Tobago later this year.

Ms Yule will be based at CARILED’s Headquarters in Trinidad & Tobago, and will manage operations there and at the two sub-offices in Saint Lucia and Ottawa, Canada. 

CARILED is a six year program launched in May 2012, with headquarters in Trinidad and Tobago, and sub-offices in Saint Lucia (OECS) and Ottawa, Canada.  The program is being implemented by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), in partnership with the Caribbean Association of Local Government Authorities (CALGA), the Caribbean Forum of Local Government Ministers (CFLGM) and the Commonwealth Local Government Forum (CLGF).  The program, focused on local economic development projects, will eventually work in fourteen Caribbean countries and will aim to partner with 50 local government authorities to support the growth and development of 500 Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).  CARILED is funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)