Climate resilience needs significant grant funding says CARICOM SG

LaRocque said severe weather events are the new normal

The Caribbean Community’s goal of creating a climate resilient region requires significant grant funding and very concessional financing, CARICOM Secretary-General Ambassador Irwin LaRocque said Monday.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the 29th Inter-sessional Meeting of CARICOM Heads of Government at the Marriot Port-au-Prince Hotel in Haiti, he said “without access to such financing, already high debt levels across the Region would be exacerbated.”

He explained that most CARICOM countries are categorized as middle or high-income and are largely ineligible for concessional development financing and Official Development Assistance (ODA), due to the use of GDP per capita as the principal criterion.

Using The Bahamas to illustrate this point, he said it is an upper middle-income country that has sustained cumulative damage and loss totaling US $678 million by hurricanes that hit between 2015 and 2017, which necessitated access to non-concessional financing.

In the case of CARICOM’s Associate Members, he said that their sources of finance were limited as they do not have access to international financial institutions. The British Virgin Islands, he noted, sustained damage in excess of US one billion dollars from Hurricane Irma.

“Our Region finds itself in extraordinary circumstances which therefore require extraordinary solutions,” Ambassador LaRocque stated, adding that there is need for new thinking, leading to changes in the criteria for determining access to concessionary financing by small, vulnerable, middle-income countries.

“We began the task of attracting resources with the CARICOM-UN High-Level Pledging Conference, held in New York last November. Some of the pledges have been honoured and we continue to collaborate with our partners to realise the other commitments,” he said.

Secretary-General LaRocque said CARICOM is unable to generate, on its own, the cost of rebuilding which has been assessed at more than $5 billion (US). He noted that even as recovery and reconstruction are ongoing, the Region is also preparing for the next hurricane season which is five months away.

“The reality is that the intensity and frequency of severe climatic events, whether it be hurricanes, droughts or unseasonal heavy rainfall are our new normal. We all must be prepared,” he said.

 

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8 Comments

  1. in these times
    March 1, 2018

    No. it just needs new management at the heads of organisations and authorities. We go not need billions and billions. we just need brilliant bold minds to put THE OBVIOUS in place. We do not beed significant funding to tell us we need to terrace cliffs or build roads properly or cut overhanging trees. We just need people who are willing to thin smartly and work even smarter. Too much money is floating around dominica and olny going into the hands of some while mediocre progress is taking place. Everyone see in imminent dangers daily, but we ignore them. then it rains heavily and we all act surprised.

  2. The one and Only
    February 28, 2018

    Resilient to cat 5 storms, are you making it resilient to an overflowing river? Will this resilience be able to withstand the current of an overflowing river?

  3. marie-claire R Skerrit
    February 28, 2018

    that word resilience need to be retire papa they use that word so much it went out of style

    • Me
      February 28, 2018

      It is nothing but a synonym for “beggimg bowl”, jumped upon by our champion mendicant to entice money out of other nations pockets. As if he is not a millionaire himself already.

    • Da passports
      February 28, 2018

      Your comment was very resilient

  4. zandoli
    February 28, 2018

    Is that all we know – grant funding?

    • Daybyday
      February 28, 2018

      Well we can’t afford it eh. And the grants we getting will be from the countries that contribute the most to climate change

    • Me
      February 28, 2018

      Skerrit would spell it “grand funding”.

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