Natural disaster and pandemic clauses should be included in all loan agreements, Prime Minister Mia Mottley told regional leaders yesterday.
Delivering the feature remarks at the Caribbean Conference on Comprehensive Disaster Management at Savannah Hotel, she said traditional methods were no longer enough to fund recovery efforts after a natural disaster.
“There is no amount of insurance money, there is no amount of aid that is going to be able to supplement the needs of a country in the fighting of natural disaster. This is why Barbados followed the example of Grenada, even though ours is of far greater scale, with the introduction of our natural disaster clauses and recently with our blue bonds. We also became the first to introduce a pandemic clause,” said Mottley.
The natural disaster clause, which was first introduced in Barbados’ debt restructuring back in 2018, allows the country to suspend its debt payments for up to two years in the event of a major destructive event. (Nation News)
