Caribbean urged to challenge ‘discriminatory’ global financial system

A Caribbean think tank leader has called for urgent reform of the global financial system, arguing that entrenched inequalities and historical injustices continue to stifle the region’s development and climate resilience.

In a speech at the Caribbean Policy Development Centre’s (CPDC) latest regional launch, executive director Richard Jones called on global powers to dismantle discriminatory financial architectures and historical legacies. 

He told an audience of delegates from 12 nations at the premiere of “Tides of Debt”, a CPDC documentary exploring the realities of sovereign debt, climate vulnerability and economic resilience across the Caribbean, Jones framed the region’s current economic and environmental struggles not as accidents of geography, but as the direct consequences of centuries of exploitation. 

He stressed that the modern Caribbean can no longer remain silent under the weight of crises it had no part in creating.

“This launch comes at a moment when the Caribbean must speak with great clarity and confidence about the development future we deserve,” Jones said. “For too long our region has been asked to carry burdens we did not create. We did not create the climate vulnerability, but we are among those most exposed to its consequences. We did not create the global debt architecture, but we are constrained by it.”

He urged international bodies to stop viewing climate change purely through an environmental lens, asserting that climate justice and historical reparations are inextricably linked facets of the same systemic problem.

“Climate justice is not only about storms, sea level rise, droughts, floods, coral reefs, and rising temperatures—it’s about power,” Jones said. “It is about responsibility. It’s about who caused the crisis, who’s paying the price, and who has the resources to respond. Historically, reparations should not only be about the past. They are about the present and the future. They are about repairing the deep and lasting damage caused by centuries of enslavement, colonialism, resource extraction, racial exploitation, and economic dependency.”

A focal point of Jones’s address was the crippling cycle of climate-induced debt. He heavily criticised international financial systems that ignore the unique vulnerabilities of island states, trapping them in high-interest debt cycles just to survive natural disasters.

“The Caribbean cannot accept a global climate model where those least responsible for the crisis are forced to borrow to survive it,” he argued. “Loans cannot be the main answer to climate loss and damage. Debt cannot be the price of resilience. And small island developing states cannot continue to be told to become more resilient while the international financial system denies us the resources to do so fairly.”

He highlighted the severe domestic fallout of this financial strain, noting that when governments are forced to spend more on debt servicing than on healthcare, education, housing and social protection, it transforms from a fiscal issue into a profound “development and justice problem.” This fragility, he noted, is further worsened by external shocks such as rising oil prices and global inflation stemming from conflicts in the Middle East.

To shift the paradigm from “development charity” to “development justice,” the CPDC head outlined three urgent priorities for the regional umbrella of no -governmental organisations and the wider civil society: building stronger, fact-based evidence documenting climate and historical vulnerabilities; strengthening public education so ordinary citizens understand how global finance impacts their daily realities; and organising disciplined, sustained policy advocacy.

Invoking the region’s legacy of resistance, Jones called on civil society to bridge the gap between high-level diplomatic negotiations — such as the Barbados-led Bridgetown Initiative and the CARICOM Reparations Commission — and the lived experiences of everyday citizens, from farmers and fisherfolk to the region’s youth.

“Our history is one of survival, resistance, creativity, and transformation,” Jones said. “From slavery to emancipation, from colonialism to independence, from disaster to recovery, Caribbean people have always found ways to organise, rebuild, and imagine a better future for ourselves. Now, we must do so again. The struggle for climate justice and historical reparations is a struggle for the right of Caribbean people to develop with dignity.”

(RR)