Forum urges shift from aid to private investment

A coalition of regional leaders and global investors on Thursday urged Caribbean governments to pivot decisively from aid dependence to private capital mobilisation, arguing that the region already commands significant investor interest but lacks the financial architecture to convert it into large-scale, job-creating projects.

The high-profile Caribbean Economic Forum (CEF), which opened here on Thursday, brings together global investors, government officials and multilateral financial institutions, aims to transform the Caribbean from a collection of fragmented markets into a unified, investable asset class.

Clinton White, founder of Counselor Global Solutions and co-convenor of the CEF, delivered the welcome remarks and reflected on his time living on the island while covering the region for the now-defunct United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

White highlighted the historical economic resilience of Barbados as a prime example of what small states can achieve.

“Following independence in 1966, this island of only 166 square miles transformed its economy from one heavily dependent on sugar into one driven by tourism, financial services, education, and increasingly innovation and sustainability,” White said. “This again demonstrates that small states can achieve extraordinary outcomes.”

White emphasised that the forum was born out of a critical partnership forged in 2020 alongside CEF executive director Kiran Maharaj, USAID, and the Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Industry and Commerce. The foundational premise of this collaboration was that governments cannot transform economies alone.

“We recognised that while development assistance remains important, aid alone would never be sufficient to address the scale of the Caribbean’s opportunities and challenges,” White said in his speech. “Aid can catalyse change, but investment sustains it. Grants can build capacity, but private capital builds industries, creates jobs, and transforms economies.”

The opening remarks drew heavily on the newly released Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report, The Caribbean Development Dynamics 2026, which concludes that the region stands at a pivotal developmental juncture. According to the report, nearly 80 per cent of current investment in the Caribbean already originates from the private sector.

White argued that the primary challenge for regional stakeholders is no longer convincing private entities of the region’s value, but rather directing existing capital into highly transformative sectors. These key areas include renewable energy, sustainable tourism, the blue economy, digital transformation and artificial intelligence.

“Ultimately, this forum is not about us, it is about the next generation,” White said. “It is about creating economies where our young people no longer feel compelled to leave their islands in search of opportunity. The choices we make in this room will help determine whether the next generation inherits a region defined by vulnerability or one defined by resilience, innovation, and shared prosperity.”

CEF founder Gregory Hill then took the stage to challenge attendees to move beyond traditional conference rhetoric and focus strictly on financial execution. Hill rejected the notion that the Caribbean should be viewed by the international community as a series of isolated, vulnerable islands, describing it instead as one of the world’s most strategic investment frontiers.

Gregory Hill, Founder, Caribbean Economic Forum & Managing Partner ACERO Capital

“Let me be entirely blunt and straightforward up front,” Hill told the delegates. “This is not another conference. We are here to work, we are here to collaborate. We are not here simply to discuss potential development; we are here to finance it. So bring out your cheque books.”

Hill suggested thst the regional economy can no longer afford to rely on endless cycles of diagnostic reports without matching execution. He noted that the cumulative balance sheets represented by the institutions present in the room amounted to an estimated $25tn, representing an unprecedented opportunity to close the gap between available global capital and viable local projects.

The forum will focus its proceedings on four central pillars: the energy transition, climate-resilient infrastructure, food security through agricultural modernisation, and the creative economy.

Hill argued that achieving scale across these sectors requires a modernised financial architecture that heavily utilises blended finance structures to de-risk private sector entry.

The CEF founder also called for a shift in how the success of multilateral development banks and development finance institutions is measured within the region. He proposed that these entities should be judged primarily by their capacity to mobilise and deploy private capital into productive assets rather than by the volume of loans or grants they distribute independently.

“Success will not be measured by the elegance of our speeches today,” Hill said. “Success will only be measured by the mandates that we sign, the partnerships that are formalised, the projects that get funded, the businesses expanded, and the jobs created. 

“If we get this right, future generations will look back at this and say that the Caribbean stopped seeing itself as a collection of independent, isolated, fractured economies, but as a collective investable asset class group.”

(RR)