Minister Pennelope Beckles is a Trinidad and Tobago politician, diplomat, and Attorney-at-Law. She is the Member of Parliament for the Constituency of Arima, and Minister of Planning and Development.  

Ms. Beckles has served as a Senator, a Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, and has held ministerial responsibilities for Housing and Urban Development; Public Utilities and the Environment; Culture and Tourism; and Social Development.  

Her portfolio includes governorship of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), being the focal point for the United Nations bodies for Trinidad and Tobago, and responsibility for technical cooperation and European Union development initiatives, along with several other national and international assignments. Ms. Beckles has also represented Trinidad and Tobago as the country’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, President of UN Women, and one of the twenty-one (21) Vice Presidents of the Seventy-fourth session of the United Nations General Assembly. She is an alumna of the Hugh Wooding Law School, Trinidad and The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados.  

As the line Minister, she has responsibility for:  

• The Chaguaramas Development Authority (C.D.A.) 
• The Environmental Management Authority (E.M.A) 
• The Institute of Marine Affairs (I.M.A) 
• The Caribbean Industrial Research Institute (CARIRI) 
• The National Trust, and  
• The Basel Convention Regional Centre for Training and Technology Transfer for the Caribbean (BCRC-Caribbean)