Prime Minister says not much done to address CDF funding issues

Prime Minister Mia Mottley is disappointed that almost a year after she sounded the alarm that the CARICOM Development Fund (CDF) was at risk and in need of a new funding model, very little progress had been made.

While renewing her call on Wednesday, she also suggested that the time had come for a review of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, so that greater emphasis could be placed on the renewable energy sector.

She was speaking at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre, during a joint launching ceremony of the Caribbean Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (CCREEE) Project Preparation Facility (PPF) and the Credit Risk Abatement Facility (CRAF), an initiative of the CDF.

Mottley reiterated that the CDF needs a new financing model that would allow it to focus on resilience and growth within the region.

“Regrettably, there has not been much progress made in that regard. And it does not allow us to ignore the fact that the CARICOM Development Fund is still not sufficiently capitalised to play the development role that we need it to play in this region – as was contemplated by the drafters and settlers of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas – largely because it is impossible for you to have a Single Market and Single Economy without there being winners or there being losers,” the Prime Minister said.

The CDF, which became operational in August 2009, was established to provide financial or technical assistance to so-called disadvantaged countries, regions and sectors within CARICOM.

It is financed primarily by contributions from CARICOM member states considered more developed countries. During the 31st CARICOM Inter-Sessional Meeting of the Conference of the Heads of Government held here in February this year, Mottley suggested that the CDF find more innovative ways to raise funding.

She told Wednesday’s ceremony that too much time was spent talking about what was needed to ensure sustainability and climate resilience in the region, but there was very little action.

“The one thing that has gotten clearer as we have spent time talking about these issues is the extent of the challenge which we face, which is the climate crisis,” said Mottley.

The Prime Minister said the Caribbean could no longer make a case to the rest of the international community that it was on the frontline of the impact from the climate crisis while national and regional policy decisions still did not reflect the fact that urgency was required to change certain things, including greater adaptation of renewable forms of energy.

“We are on a path that we want to do it, but if we take so long to do it then others will begin to doubt their own role in bringing order to our condition,” she warned.

“Our ability to engage with credibility is compromised if when we can make changes in our own domestic and regional economies we are not making them with sufficient haste.”

Adding that the region may not have served itself well, the immediate past CARICOM chair said there needed to be greater collaboration among countries in the region to tackle issues relating to climate change.

“In the context of the CARICOM Secretariat and the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, we may need to look back and see how we can strengthen the framework that will impose upon us greater obligation for coordination and for collaboration than currently exists within the Community at this stage,” said the Prime Minister.

Lamenting that it was regrettable that renewable energy was not a focus of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas when the issue of energy was laid out within it, Mottley said: “It is against that background that I repeat the call I made in Trinidad in February for there to be greater collaboration at the regional level for, and amendments if necessary to, the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas to better facilitate the kind of collaboration and cooperation that I believe to be absolutely essential in this region.”

She said despite the slow pace over the past two decades to build out the renewable energy sector, the opportunity still exists.

The Barbadian leader called on the political leadership and the populations of the region “to recognise it is up to us first and foremost, to show that we can take control of the things that fall within our domain before we go to others asking others to help us, as they must”.

(marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb)