Caribbean creatives to benefit from new funding and trade finance guarantees

The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) on Thursday announced a new financing and investment package to reduce reliance on one-off grants and place the region’s creative industries – from festivals to small enterprises – on a more sustainable footing.

The announcement was made on Thursday by the president of the Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), Daniel Best, during a Big Conversations panel discussion, part of the CARIFESTA XV arts and culture festival now underway here.

Speaking at the Hilton Barbados Resort on the topic Beyond the Grant: Financing Futures in the Creative Economy, Best gave an assurance that the new funding and investment framework – anchored in the bank’s Cultural and Creative Industries Innovation Fund (CCIIF) – would go beyond one-off grants towards long-term sustainability.

Before outlining the initiatives, Best highlighted the fund’s achievements. Established in 2016 as a regional platform for creatives and initially capitalised at US$2.6 million (BDS$5.2 million), the CCIIF supported more than 1 000 practitioners in 17 countries between 2018 and 2023, generated 144 new jobs and launched 30 projects.

The CDB head noted that the fund had also attracted an additional US$500 000 (BDS$1 million) in donor support in recognition of the need to move beyond grant dependence.

He said: “Between 2020 and 2023 we recognised that to do this successfully, we had to do something different in Haiti because Haiti could not be captured within these 17 countries. And so, we created a special CCIIF Haiti to the tune of $200 000 and that directly impacted 90 creatives in Haiti in the arts.”

Best stressed that training was key to sustainability:  “We trained over this period approximately 200 of our creatives across the region in proposal writing. The other thing we have done of course, is capacity building. And in capacity building, we focused on skills development, mentorship, and enterprise acceleration. But all of this goes to naught and will not make sense if the enabling environment is not there to support it. It will ultimately be one-offs and grants.”

He added: “We focused on the enabling environment, by providing financing for policy development and strategic frameworks. We also engaged in supporting research and knowledge sharing of the economic value of the cultural industries. But this thing got to make sense. After the grants finish, it got to mek sense.”

Best then unveiled the bank’s new financing and investment initiative for the creative economy: “Our board approved a recapitalisation of CCIIF which will take us to 2027. But now, we’re trying to move past the grants because that is important.

“And so, we are looking at blended financing instruments. And I am very pleased to report, that in June of this year at our annual board meeting in Brasília, our board approved the first Trade Finance Guarantee Programme that the bank has ever done, supporting de-risking investment such that commercial lenders – their investments into MSMEs who are involved in trade – have an easier path to move their goods intra-regionally and internationally.”

He continued: “We are going to launch that finance programme later this year. But we are not stopping there. At the beginning of next year, we will be launching an MSME – particularly focusing on an MSME Partial Credit Guarantee Scheme… again, to de-risk investment into MSMEs such that the threshold through which – and I am speaking specifically about the creatives – … they have to overcome to actually get their goods, their services across this region, across the world, becomes a little bit easier.”

Best then turned his attention to measures that could help creatives withstand the fallout from an adverse climatic event.

He said: “We know we live in the toughest neighbourhood in the world when it comes to climate. But how come climate financing and creative financing are not linked? Mek it mek sense. Among the biggest revenue earners in our countries is tourism, our tourism product – Crop Over, Trini Carnival, Vinci Mas, Spice Mas, Mashramani, Junkanoo in the Bahamas and Sugar Mas in St Kitts and Nevis. But could you imagine one adverse weather event passing through at the time of these festivals? What happens then?” 

He recalled that when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, all those festivals ground to a halt.

He said: “How do we provide financing that is resilient and link it with cultural financing? The two cannot be considered mutually exclusive. This is also what we are looking at. So, essentially, the bank is seeking to move beyond the grant. We are seeking to move beyond a sustainable catalytic model and we throwing everything at it. Blended finance, guarantees, and receivables finance, essentially to transition from grant dependency to investment readiness.”

The CDB president argued that the Caribbean has contributed immense talent to the global economy – through its artists, creatives, intellectuals and athletes – and that it is time the region’s creative industry was financed in a sustainable way.

“We gine mek it mek sense,” he declared.

emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb