President Ramotar calls on CDB to assist in finding new growth areas
– CDB Governors acknowledge challenges towards greater regional integration

PRESIDENT Donald Ramotar has challenged the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) to address several areas he described as quintessential to ensure the Region’s competitive advantage is developed with a focus on regional integration.

He said the region must consolidate its gains, build on its successes and immunise itself from the difficulties that exist. President Ramotar also called on the bank and its leadership to assist the region to identify new sources of growth, as well as to support countries to deal with huge debts that threaten to retard the region’s development.

The Guyanese Head of State was speaking at the opening of the 44th annual CDB Board of Governors meeting, in the Guyana International Conference Centre (GICC) at Liliendaal, Greater Georgetown, yesterday.

Mr. Ramotar said: “We need to work closely to overcome the problems (facing the Caribbean Region) and also, as far as possible, unite ourselves from what impacts on our countries.”

MAJOR AREAS

He identified three major areas that need to be looked at, including the high levels of debt in developing countries and graduation from concessional financing and development aid based on an arbitrary categorisation of small developing states as upper middle income countries; the vulnerability to external shocks, as was evidenced by the 2008 global financial crisis that rocked the economies of many countries in the Region and the Region’s increasing susceptibility to the impacts of climate change.
Mr. Ramotar explained that some of these challenges have also been viewed dually as opportunities, as is the case with climate change and the response Guyana took in pioneering the acclaimed Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS).
“We cannot escape it (the impacts of climate change) so we have to be part of the solution…we have to turn our challenges into opportunities,” the Guyanese Head of State said.
According to him, the Caribbean’s competitive advantage if developed in the interest of regional integration, can be supported by the CDB through focus on:
* diversification of economies, a process that must focus on new areas of growth, including Information Communication and Technology (ICT);

* development of the Region’s human resource capital
* investment in changing the image of agriculture from being seen as a field with “ragged men and women in fields” to one that has vast opportunities in the areas of science and technology, especially as these areas relate to reducing the Region’s massive food import bill, in the interest of food and nutrition security and
* broadening the scope for partnerships with the international community to expose countries to more possibilities for trade and human resources development, in general the advancement of socio-economic progress.

“We cannot afford a reversal (of socio-economic gains made) we need the support to continue to grow,” President Ramotar emphasised, as he made clear the need for real efforts in the areas mentioned.

The Head of State added that all these focus areas must be done from a platform of a united Caribbean Region, a coordinated approach, to support the important thrust in the direction of greater regional integration.

IDEAL PARTNER
“We need strong institutions to develop and consolidate our unity,” he said, noting that the CDB is an ideal partner that can support this process going forward, as it has in the past.
President Ramotar also lauded efforts, over the last decades, that have been undertaken by the CDB across the Region.
Guyana’s Finance Minister, Dr. Ashni Singh, who is Chairman of the CDB Board of Governors, echoed similar sentiments.

In his remarks at the same forum, he said: “We (CDB) have also formulated an ambitious aspiration of regional integration, clearly recognising the necessity of togetherness when confronted by the limitations of smallness.”

He said the stark reality is that at the “dusk of half a century of nationhood” small states of the Caribbean appear no less vulnerable, either individually or taken as a collective, than they were at the start of the journey.
Dr. Singh said: “Indeed, when compared to the global context of fifty years ago, today’s world comprises infinitely more insidious channels through which vulnerability is exacerbated instead of mitigated.
“What we have not managed to accomplish after fifty years is to lift ourselves beyond the pale of existentially threatening exposure, whether it be to the spectre of climate change or to the vicissitudinous global economy.”
The CDB Board of Governors Chairman insisted that efforts must be made, in a practical way, to ensure successes in the integration effort, not within the corridors of the regional bureaucracy, but in the streets and markets where people’s lives are more immediately touched.

In response to President Ramotar, the Governors from the British Virgin Islands (BVI), Colombia and Italy agreed that the people of the Caribbean Region depend on the CDB for solutions, and efforts on advancing policies in this regard to effect change must be advanced.
The Governors also acknowledged the challenges that plague development in the Region and accepted that cooperation, in addressing this, is a route that is full of possibilities.
Sustainable growth was another point identified in the Governors’ replies, particularly in relation to climate change and its accompanying challenges.
The Temporary Alternate Governor for Italy, Mr. Pablo Facchinei said: “We particularly welcome the increased engagement of the Bank in the area of Climate Change, which constitutes a major threat to the Region. In this regard, we highly appreciate the participation of the Executive Director of the Green Climate Fund at this Annual Meeting.

CRUCIAL ROLE
“In the current context, the Bank has a crucial role to play, one for which a solid institution is needed. In this regard, we welcome the strengthening of the Bank’s risk capacity and the removal of the negative outlook of its credit rating by its credit rating agencies.”

Another point of agreement was the need for the CDB to realistically and flexibly align its strategic development plan to the development objectives of the countries that benefit from its support, in the interest of easier and better lives for the Region’s peoples’ socio-economic advancement in its truest sense.
The Temporary Alternate Governor for Colombia, Mr. Alberto de Brigard said: “For us, nationals of non-insular Caribbean countries, such as the beautiful Republic of Guyana, it is most interesting to have yet another occasion of encountering those similarities and contrasts among our countries that make integration processes certainly complex, but, above all, so full of possibilities.
“…among the many points to be discussed by the Board of Governors of CDB in the next couple of days, we consider that the grounds for the strategic plan for the five-year cycle that will start in 2015 are particularly important.
“We think that the recently adopted format for our meetings creates the most appropriate and valuable forum for a frank and open debate about the route the Bank should follow in the coming years.
“In particular, this is the right moment for aligning, in a realistic and flexible structure, the development objectives of both donor and borrowing member countries, with the absorptive capacity, the project pipelines and country strategies of the borrowing members.

TRANSVERSAL OBJECTIVES
“In this strategic planning process it is crucial to give much attention to our approach to some transversal objectives, such as gender equality, climate change response, disaster prevention and citizen security, among others. By their very nature, those are issues that, in general, transcend national borders and individual countries’ resources. We know that CDB is recognised as a trusted partner at the time of designing and implementing national programmes that touch these problems and we hope that our discussions here contribute to the generation of more initiatives that are regional in scope, as well as to mainstream these issues, for the benefit of the people of the Region, as solid foundations for sustainable social and economic progress.
“The Regional borrowing member countries are willing to take part in this analysis and in regional programmes aimed to make life easier, safer, and with more opportunities for every woman and every man in this part of the world.”
The presentations made during the opening session of the 44th annual CDB Board of Governors meeting were well received by the assembled stakeholders.
In May of each year, the CDB Board of Governors holds its Annual Meeting in one of the Bank’s 27 member countries. This is normally a week-long event comprising seminars, workshops and two days of formal meetings attended by the institution’s Governors, most of whom are Prime Ministers, Ministers of Finance or other high level authorities of the member countries.
The 2014 meeting ends today.

(Vanessa Narine)