The aid-related response to the travails of Caribbean countries by multilateral financial institutions (MFI) in the wake of the outbreak of COVID-19 and its attendant consequences up until now amounts to a failure in the region, a University of the West Indies lecturer told a public forum in Barbados last week.
Cave Hill economics lecturer, Dr Justin Robinson, last week asserted at a Public Workers’ Cooperative Credit Union Forum in Barbados that MFIs have ‘come up short’ in their response to the COVID-19-related travails of the region arising out of the advent of the global pandemic.
Caribbean countries, notably the heavily tourism-dependent islands, have seen their economies severely affected by the loss of visitor arrival-related revenue and Dr Robinson asserted that the response of the lending agencies had been disproportionate to the extent of the pandemic’s impact on the region.
