The United Kingdom has given the green light to a replenishment of its funding to the Caribbean Development Bank with the issuance of a new Order for payments to the Bank’s Special Development Fund (SDF).
Late last week it was disclosed that under Section 11 of the International Development Act of 2002, the Order directed that an amount of up to £21 million be made available to the Bank in keeping with commitments relating to the tenth replenishment of the SDF. Last January, at a pledging conference, Britain had committed to maintaining its share of funding to the Bank’s Special Development Fund.
The approved amount is to be disbursed to the CDB over the next four years to continue to support what is described as life-changing projects in the Caribbean. The SDF facilitates loans and grants to support projects in the most vulnerable countries in the Caribbean for initiatives associated with addressing poverty, inequality and global challenges including climate change and access to quality education.
Haiti, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Suriname, are expected to benefit from the Fund.
Last September the United Kingdom committed £4.5 million to the Special Development Fund specifically to help finance COVID-19 recovery initiatives in the respective countries.
The new allocation comes at a time when the region is still coping with the prolonged impact of the pandemic, not least the costs associated with assuring that underdeveloped health services keep pace with what, in some instances, have been the worsening of the pandemic. Beyond the pandemic itself, Caribbean countries are also facing some of the knock-on effects including loss of jobs and the need to provide support for poor families that have been seriously materially affected by the pandemic.
Some Caribbean countries, notably Haiti, have also had to face internal socio-political issues that have placed further strain on domestic resources that are insufficient to meet the countries’ socio-economic needs.
