By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., November 25, 2018 – Prime Minister the Hon. Dr. Hubert A. Minnis and Bahamian delegation arrived in Washington, D.C., this afternoon to participate in a High Level Conference on Building Resilience to Disasters and Climate Change in the Caribbean at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Headquarters, 700 19th Street, N.W, on Monday, November 26, 2018.
The importance of the conference — sponsored by International Monetary Fund, the World Bank Group and the Inter-American Development Bank — is underscored by the fact that the Prime Ministers of all of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries are among the delegates.
“The Caribbean region’s already high vulnerability to natural disasters is likely to be exacerbated as the frequency and severity of disasters increase from climate change effects. But for several reasons, countries in the region invest little in building resilience and rely heavily on ex-post external assistance to recover from such disasters,” the IMF states on its website.
Nothing that “reducing the human and economic costs of natural disasters and climate risks requires a greater shift in policy focus towards ex-ante resilience building and a broad disaster risk management strategy,” the IMF adds, “The conference brings together key stakeholders, including senior policymakers, public, private, and multilateral development partners, to explore incentives to shift the focus of policies towards building resilience and innovative disaster risk financing policies and instruments that would help in this regard.”
Following the official opening at 9:00 a.m. on Monday, October 26IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde will deliver opening remarks, followed by remarks by Ms. Kristalina Georgieva, Chief Executive Officer, the World Bank Group (WBG); Remarks by Luis Alberto Moreno, President, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB); and remarks by the Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of International Development, Canada.
The first session, from 9:45am – 12:15pm, will address the topic, “Shifting Focus to Building Resilience – Enhancing Incentives and Catalyzing Financial Support.”
“Investing in preparedness for natural disasters and climate change is a key step in establishing resilience and reducing the large economic and human cost of natural disasters to the Caribbean economies,” the IMF website notes.
Pointing out that significant progress is being made in many countries in developing risk management strategies and the multilaterals and bilateral partners are playing an active role, the IMF website adds, “Still, international financing remains concentrated on post-disaster relief and reconstruction, with resources for building ex-ante resilience limited and somewhat difficult to access due to cumbersome processes and eligibility criteria. This session focuses on what constrains the countries in the Caribbean to invest more in building resilience; take stock of and learn from ongoing resilience building efforts; and explore ways to shift policy focus and financing towards greater ex-ante resilience-building within an appropriate underlying macro-fiscal framework.”
From 9:45am – 11:00am, the focus will be on TAKING STOCK OF EFFORTS TO BUILD RESILIENCE. The moderator for this discussion will Alejandro Werner, Director of Western Hemisphere Department, IMF, and “lead speakers” will include the Hon. Keith Mitchell, Prime Minister of Grenada; the Hon. Mia A. Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados; the Rt. Hon. Patricia Scotland, QC, Secretary General, Commonwealth Secretariat; and Dr. Warren Smith, President of Caribbean Development Bank (CDB).
Prime Minister Minnis is scheduled to speak during an afternoon session on IMPROVING RISK TRANSFER, from 2:00pm – 3:15pm, which will be moderated by Jorge Familiar, Vice President for Latin America and the Caribbean, WBG.
Lead speakers for this session are listed as the Hon. Hubert Alexander Minnis, Prime Minister of Bahamas; Hon. Nigel Clarke, Minister of Finance and Public Service of Jamaica; Hon. Camillo Gonsalves, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning of St. Vincent and the Grenadines; Mr. Isaac Anthony, CEO Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF); and Mr. Stefan Kossoff, Head of DfID for the Caribbean.
