Caribbean Development Bank so far spent over US$80 million for COVID response in region

More than US$80 million has been spent by Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) for assisting the Borrowing Member Countries (BMCs) in their ongoing battles against the contagious COVID-19 outbreak. CDB Director of Projects Department, Daniel Best, made the remark on Tuesday. 

He stated, “This consecutive second year of the COVID-19 outbreak witnessed our response promoted by flexibility and dexterity. Wherever possible, we worked with our BMCs to redesign ongoing operations to meet short-term needs, and we built partnerships to leverage additional and concessionary resources to fund national-level management and response”. 

This response also saw a partnership with IDB to make US$50 million available for the various sectors such as – health, education, social protection and economic projects in the OECS. The European Investment Bank will also be contributing by providing a total sum amount of 30 million euros for the dissemination of the COVID-19 vaccines as well as the other health-related emergencies.  

The Director furthermore highlighted that this partnership is being done with:

• Caribbean Community (CARICOM), 
• the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Commission,
• the University of the West Indies (UWI) 
• Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), 
• the European Union
•  and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). 

As per the data outlined by Best, for the projects of 2021, CDB has approved an amount of US$122.6 million, where the loan financing counts for US$71.2 million, and the grant funding was worth US$51.4 million. On the other hand, disbursements in 2021 counted for – US$256.6 million, of which US$20 million were allocated to the most-impoverished island country of the Caribbean region – Haiti. 

Following his statement, best added, “We are functioning with BMCs with the motive to create additional pipeline projects for GCF co-financing, to scale up and improve the sustainability of future climate finance flows to the Caribbean. Implementation of the EUR€14 million EU-funded Caribbean Action for Resilience Enhancement – (CARE) Programme will also begin implementation in the first quarter of 2022, and this will provide grant financing to support climate resilience in our BMCs”.