The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) has set itself the formidable mission of halving poverty levels in the Caribbean within a time frame that better positions its borrowing member countries to realise the United Nations-set 2030 Social Development Goals (SDG).
Newly-appointed president of the bank, Dr Hyginus ‘Gene’ Leon, is however, making no secret of the fact that in undertaking that mission, the bank is in effect, setting itself what arguably is the most formidable mission ever in its history.
“Preliminary estimates suggest that reaching our goal of halving poverty by 2030 would require more than a doubling of average CDB lending,” the bank’s president is quoted as saying.
On the issue of the bank’s nineteen (19) Borrowing Member Countries (BMC) meeting the SDG’s within the designated timeframe, Leon is already on record as saying that the process was “not advancing at the speed and scale required in the Bank’s 19 Borrowing Member Countries.”
And while the bank’s BMCs have, in principle, committed to the UN’s 2030 Agenda for the attainment of the SDGs, less than half of them have submitted voluntary national reviews, reporting on the pace of progress towards the realisation of the SDG’S.
At the recent 51st Annual General Meeting of the CDB’s Board of Governors, Dr Leon is reported to have said in his presentation that “If the Bank is to function as an effective development partner in the drive towards the SDGs and beyond, it must remain relevant and fit-for-purpose, and be appropriately sized, skilled and structured.”
Unsurprisingly, he pointed to the Bank’s biggest challenge, its anticipated financing which he said was likely to be the most serious stumbling block to the region’s efforts to attain the SDG’s within the stipulated time frame. The vast majority of the reviews submitted to the CDB by its BMC’s cited inadequate funding and the additional burdens arising out of natural hazards that thwart their efforts, going forward.
Arising out of concerns over the high percentage of non-submission of progress reports by member countries, the CDB president said that the bank is moving to create a data hub.
“As a starting point, we need to measure better to target better. That includes building data architectures and databases to better inform our evidence-based decision making.”
The CDB President is also quoted as saying that that such a data hub could include a distance-to-SDG tracker that updates not only implementation but associated measures of distances to benchmarks, quantum of financing needs, and estimates of concessionary terms that could facilitate more rapid reductions in these distance metrics. The data hub could also be extended to a resilience tracker that informs on various dimensions of resilience and the region’s ability to recover from shocks or sustain a growth momentum.
Meanwhile, Dr Leon alluded to the fact that the natural disaster-prone nature of the region continues to serve to increase the capital needs of the affected countries and suggested that the interest rates at which this capital is financed should be appropriately lower.
