By: Ilan Goldfajn
February 4, 2025
The Honorable Philip Davis, Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, Minister Halkitis,
Distinguished Governors, Heads of Delegation and Members of the Delegations;
Executive Directors of the Inter-American Development Bank and IDB Invest,
Ladies and gentlemen.
It’s a pleasure to be here.
The Bahamas offers us an ideal venue for our meetings and our discussions on how we can foster sustainable development and growth for our region.
These principles of respect for the environment and its people are rooted in the ancestry of these islands.
The native Lucayan people traversed this archipelago from this large central island they called Ba Ha Ma to the far reaches of Bimini in the west and Inagua in the south.
They lived a communal life that held deep reverence for the ocean.
In keeping with that, the Bahamas today is building a sustainable economy that protects the ocean environment while ensuring prosperity and human dignity.
We, at the IDB are very proud to be a partner in that mission.
Today, I would like to talk to you about three issues.
First, how the Bahamas and the Caribbean are responding to the challenges they face to build a more sustainable and prosperous future;
Second, how we at the IDB are supporting these efforts, including through our ONE Caribbean program;
and finally, the reforms and initiatives we are undertaking with IDBimpact+ to elevate the scale and impact of our work and improve lives in the Caribbean.
Bahamas: Resilience and Progress
The last few years have tested the resilience of countries across our region.
Yet, The Bahamas has shown extraordinary determination.
What is particularly commendable is The Bahamas’ commitment to reforms that lay the groundwork for long-term sustainability and growth.
These include fiscal consolidation that has reduced financing needs, and comprehensive energy and resilience reforms.
IDB’s Focus in The Bahamas
This has opened space for important investments to address key challenges. The IDB is proud to support these efforts.
We’re helping The Bahamas expand climate-resilient infrastructure by supporting the expansion of water systems through a $100 million credit line, boosting the capacity and climate resilience of four airports with a $35 million project and increasing the use of solar energy through a $9 million grant.
We’re supporting the Preparedness, Recovery and Reconstruction Country Team (P2RCT), which was created after Hurricane Dorian to make government more responsive in disaster situations.
We participated in this year’s groundbreaking debt-for-climate resilience operation, which will allocate close to $124 million to marine conservation projects.
And IDB Invest, our private-sector arm, is providing $10 million to improve liquidity for SMEs across the country.
Caribbean: Shared Challenges and Successes
Looking at the region as a whole, Caribbean economies have been among the best performing of the region. They are expected to grow faster than the overall LAC region.
But they also face important structural challenges.
First, the Caribbean is one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable regions.
Second, violent crime continues to undermine quality of life and slow economic growth.
Third, limited investment is slowing productivity and limiting the expansion of the private sector.
Fourth, the Caribbean’s dependence on imported food leaves the region subject to price shocks that can make food unaffordable.
Yet, within these challenges lie stories of success.
Barbados is now a recognized world leader in climate action, with a holistic climate change response strategy embodied in the Roofs to Reefs Program.
Jamaica has been a model of fiscal discipline and successful debt management while also making important advances in sustainable agriculture and tourism.
Trinidad and Tobago’s National Energy Policy has demonstrated how governments boost the use of renewable energy while also encouraging energy efficiency.
IDB projects in the region
The IDB is proud to be a partner to the region’s success stories.
In 2024, we approved $790 million in new projects and programs and our pipeline for 2025 includes over $1.1 billion to support infrastructure resilience, skills training, and access to credit for small companies, among many other things.
And the debt-for-marine-conservation swap in Bahamas was not the only one. We worked with Barbados on an operation that generated $125 million in fiscal savings, which will be channeled into new resilience investments.
We are working on a bioeconomy project with Suriname that will provide rural Amazon villages with renewable energy, potable water supply and telecommunication systems.
IDB Invest is helping Caribbean companies advance the energy transition through the Caribbean Net-Zero and Resilient Private Sector Program with $120 million in financing and technical assistance.
And IDB Lab, our innovation lab and venture capital wing, will invest $750,000 to support the Caribbean’s first health-innovation accelerator and incubator, helping strengthen regional health innovation.
ONE Caribbean
But to address challenges that transcend borders we also need a coordinated regional approach.
That is why last year our Governors endorsed our ONE Caribbean strategic framework.
It was designed through a series of dialogues with you to focus on the four structural challenges I mentioned earlier – climate vulnerability, citizen security, slow growth and food security.
In just under a year, we are already working together with you to address these challenges.
The IDB has allocated $20 million of internal grant resources and mobilized additional funding including over $6 million from the UK.
I am proud to report today that we have developed six early grant initiatives with $4 million of our internal resources that crowded in an additional $1.2 million.
These initiatives include our ONE Safe Caribbean that will increase the capacity of prosecutors in the region to take on transnational organized crime and a program that is helping strengthen cybersecurity plans and capabilities so countries can better respond to cyber incidents.
Looking Ahead
And we want to do more to achieve our three core objectives of reducing poverty, tackling climate change and boosting sustainable growth – in the Caribbean and throughout Latin America.
That’s why we’re carrying out the IDBImpact+ reforms, which will secure more resources to enhance the impact and scale of our work.
They will help expand our lending capacity to $19 billion by 2030 – unlocking $50 billion over the next decade.
To ensure these resources deliver meaningful change, we are implementing a new Impact Framework anchored in a Mission Scorecard with clear, evidence-based metrics.
We are also upgrading our financial tools – such as Policy-Based Loans and investment lending – to help countries mobilize private resources and deliver high-impact projects.
Enhanced regional programs, like ONE Caribbean, will address cross-border challenges with integrated, scalable solutions.
Meanwhile, reforms to IDB Invest and IDB Lab will mobilize private capital, foster entrepreneurship, and expand innovation to address development challenges.
In total, we are bringing to our Annual Meetings in Santiago in Chile 11 reforms and initiatives, as we prepare to increase the scale and impact of our work, making IDBimpact+ a reality.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Caribbean countries have done important work to stabilize their economies and are now well-positioned to advance on critical issues such as sustainable growth, climate change, productivity growth and citizen security.
The IDB has been and will continue to be your partner in this endeavor. Through ONE Caribbean, we now also have a coordinated regional approach to address common challenges.
Thank you.
(The author is the president of the Inter-American Development Bank)Email your opinions, letters and comment