CASTRIES, St. Lucia, May 22, CMC – The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) Wednesday began its 43rd Board of Governors meeting here with St. Lucia’s Prime Minister Dr. Kenny Anthony calling on the international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to develop a new strategic partnership with the region.
Anthony, in a wide ranging address to the governors that also include heads of governments, finance ministers and representatives of developed countries, such as Britain and Canada, said that the financial institutions “prescribe for us but very rarely do we tell them what we expect of them, what we want from them”.
He said the international institutions, of which the region holds membership, must be able to “facilitate our integration into the global economy.
“To do this we must be must be very clear of our objectives and our relations with these institutions. The IMF for instance, must join with us to petition the international community for special terms on which debt can either be restructured or reduced.
“If the institution insists that debt above certain levels is a binding constraint on growth and countries have exhausted all the avenues recommended by them, then the international community will have to play a critical role so that growth can be re-started”.
Anthony said also that the World Bank group must also be encouraged to mobilise significant funding on reasonable terms for infrastructural development “and to re-start the growth process.
“In addition, through the IFC, they need to make major efforts, along with the governments at the national level, with developing the domestic private sector and to encourage the entry of foreign investments in the sectors identified for leading the growth process”.
Anthony, the outgoing chairman of the region’s premier lending banking institution, said “concentrated effort is needed by the World Bank group to get the engine of growth moving again.
“”I want to suggest that we look into the possibility of creating a consortium like the former Caribbean Group for Cooperation for Economic Development which was responsible for significant success in mobilising substantial funding in the 1980s when the region experienced one of its fastest rates of growth”.
The St. Lucia Prime Minister said that the various initiatives now being undertaken by the IMF with the discussion on small states, the World Bank and the Caribbean Growth Forum “can culminate in such an institutional framework to pursue certain…objectives with specific timelines.
Anthony said even the World Trade Organization (WTO), “despite the pain it has unleashed on the banana producing countries of the region, is crucial to the integration of the region into the international financial system.
“The region has to devise a strategy to treat with the trade and access to markets for existing and new goods and services. You will have to jointly on a regional basis devote the requite resources to the hosting of opportunities and making the connections to successfully insert ourselves into the major supply chains that service international trade.”
Anthony said that the United Nations has a number of agencies which can be vital in “facilitating the restructuring of our domestic economies and their insertions into global economy”.
But he made it clear, “we need to be selective and form a clear…view of our approach to all of these institutions of which we are members.
“The way forward is not going to be easy, but sheer necessity suggests we need address this perennial economic problem, not only with new vigour, but with new ideas and commitment,” Anthony said, adding that the “case must be made for stocktaking of the most fundamental kind.
“The challenges we face are so monumental …that these reflections and thinking, as often said out of the box, are not optional. We are at the cross roads, it is definitely required”.
Anthony warned the governors that if the Caribbean countries continue along the same socio-economic path they would be heading for an “unsatisfactory outcome.
“We need to find another way to secure a different outcome. Better outcomes, however, will not appear out of thin air,” he warned.
“In short, things will not resolve themselves if left alone and so we need good governance, technical and administrative capacities and social consensus and accountability to effect change and achieve success,” Anthony said, outlining three scenarios that are possible in this conjecture.
He said the countries could maintain their current policies, change the policies while the international community remains in current faze or thirdly “both circumstances change leading to increased growth and economic transformation iof we have the appropriate policy”.
