– but Guyana wants increased resource flow, removal of disbursement bottlenecks
The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) must move quickly to increase the net flow of resources to its Borrowing Member Countries (BMCs) if it is to play its expected role in helping those countries to confront the food security and other challenges confronting them at this time, according to Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh.
Addressing the Thirty-Ninth Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the bank in the Turks and Caicos Islands on Wednesday May 2, Singh said that Guyana had noted both the 7.2 per cent decrease in the total disbursement of loans and grants as well as the reduction in the net flow of resources to BMCs in 2008 compared with the preceding year. “We would urge the bank to pay attention to the reasons for these developments and to take remedial action where this might be required, including by removing disbursement bottlenecks where they exist and helping to improve project design and implementation capacity within the BMCs,” Singh told the meeting.
Alluding to what he described as “the active and demonstrable role” which the CDB is expected to play in assisting borrowing countries to meet the challenges facing them, Singh said that issues such as food security assume an even greater significance under the prevailing economic conditions. “With the region’s balance of payments under stress we could hardly afford to sustain a food bill of over US$3 billion per annum.
In his address Singh told the meeting that the Caribbean’s particular vulnerability to climate change meant that investment in infrastructure and technology will have to be undertaken at a cost that the Caribbean can scarcely currently afford. “Addressing challenges such as food security and climate change are priorities which we would continue to urge the bank to emphasise,” he added.
In his report to the meeting, CDB President Dr. Compton Bourne said that the bank’s loans and grants operations “were fully consistent with the objectives stated in the 2005-2009 Strategic Plan. The overarching objectives of this plan are sustainable poverty reduction, fostering inclusive social development, promoting food governance, supporting regional integration and cooperation, promoting environmental sustainability and natural disaster risk reduction and management and promoting gender equality.
Bourne said that in pursuit of its objectives the bank had increased its total loans and grants to both More Developed Countries (MDCs) and Less Developed Countries (LDCs) from US$219 million in 2007 to US$347 million last year. He disclosed that Caribbean Community (Caricom) MD’s had obtained approximately 52 per cent of those loans and grants last year while LDCs within the regional grouping, including Haiti and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) members had secured 37 per cent of the bank’s 2008 funding. The remaining approximately 10 per cent was allocated to “regional projects and related activities”.
According to the CDB President, the bank had addressed its economic growth objective “by financing of social and economic infrastructure, (in some cases rehabilitation and reconstruction) and by loans and technical assistance grants to financial intermediaries for the purpose of private sector development.”
Meanwhile, according to Singh, the work of the CDB in Guyana “continues to be most relevant to our agenda for growth and poverty reduction.” Among the CDB-funded projects currently being executed in Guyana are the continued support for the Skeldon sugar modernisation project, the Community Services Enhancement Project which has financed various infrastructural projects including improvement of access roads, schools and health centres. More recent CDB projects include a Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) project.
Singh disclosed that under the bank’s Basic Needs Trust Fund (BNTF) Guyana continues to benefit in such areas as water supply and education and health facilities. He said Guyana had a proven track record of strong implementation performance under previous BNTF programmes” adding that government intended to continue to utilise these grant resources “as effectively as we possibly can”.
