SHAW… the vulnerability of the Caribbean is now indisputable and we need to seek affordable infrastructure financing solutions
Audley Shaw says he has urged donor agencies to reconsider the size of their aid programmes to the Caribbean, with a particular focus on infrastructure support and enhancement, following devastating hurricanes that pummelled a number of islands this summer.
“The vulnerability of the Caribbean is now indisputable and we need to seek affordable infrastructure financing solutions,” Shaw told delegates at yesterday’s opening of a two-day Caribbean Infrastructure Forum at Hilton Rose Hall hotel in Montego Bay.
Shaw, Jamaica’s finance minister, said that recent hurricanes Irma and Maria, had “reminded the world of the extreme vulnerability of the Caribbean to exogenous shocks”.
“These unprecedented natural disasters require extraordinary and equally unprecedented responses from the combined resources of the multilateral development partners, and I have urged these institutions to use the devastation of the 2017 hurricanes as an opportunity to reconsider their policy stance in the advancing of funding to economies rebounding from the effects of natural disasters,” Shaw said.
“Current multilateral financing and support exclude some Caribbean countries from access to development financing by using limited criteria based on per capita income and failing to take into account extreme vulnerabilities,” Shaw told the forum being hosted by IJ Global and New Energy Events, and sponsored by CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank and KPMG.
The Government of Jamaica, he added, was acutely aware that infrastructure development is critical for providing people with access to such basic needs as electricity, water, and improved living conditions thereby reducing poverty and supporting economic growth.
He pointed to programmes being implemented by the Government and partners, including in agriculture with the installation of harvesting systems under the climate change adaptation programme and upgrading of irrigation infrastructure the provision of budgetary support and parametric insurance through the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF).
Leave A Comment