CDB President Gene Leon underscored the need for a comprehensive approach to the region’s financing needs in order to meet its development needs in the long term.

This will require a broad spectrum of financial instruments backed by a sound regulatory environment and a well-developed market infrastructure, Leon added during his presentation at the CBD Annual Conference.

According to the bank’s official website, the proposals include contingent debt instruments to safely incentivize the undertaking of reforms.

The CBD president also mentioned climate resilience and thematic bonds, in connection with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and the activities designed to achieve them.

A secure regional digital network is also envisaged to facilitate enhanced services in areas such as trade, education, health, security, justice and government service delivery.

Our development challenge is not simply to make up for lost ground, Leon insisted, but to alter that development path so that our societies can be placed at a higher and more sustainable standard of well-being in the future.

The CBD is a regional financial institution that brings together nearly twenty Caribbean nations, including Barbados, Guyana, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Jamaica

Among its objectives is to reduce inequality and halve extreme poverty in its borrowing member countries by the end of 2025.

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