Government will not be left on its own to execute the US$54 million Beryl Emergency Response and Recovery Project over the next four years.
Lilia Burunciuc, World Bank country director for the Caribbean, says that having approved the loan for Barbados to fortify the breakwater at the Bridgetown fisheries complex and other measures, her organisation will be providing significant implementation support.
Over the years, Barbados and other Caribbean countries have been said to be negatively affected by “implementation deficit disorder, and Burunciuc acknowledged that “implementation is always a challenge”.
She noted that this was generally understandable “because of the small size of the countries and small size of the administrations”.
However, the World Bank official said the international financial institution usually sought to “provision additional resources for implementation, we try to provision hands-on implementation support”.
This will be case for the Beryl Emergency Response and Recovery Project which the World Bank’s Board of executive directors approved on November 21.
“For the emergency operation here, we’re providing hands-on implementation support, which is additional support, additional resources, that we’re putting in place to make sure that implementation takes place in a timely manner,” she said.
“In addition to financing, we also bring a lot of knowledge and experience and then best practices from around the world, and we will be very happy to share those with Barbados, but also use what we learn in Barbados and best practices from Barbados for other countries, in the Caribbean and around the world.
“We’re always learning from projects and trying to do the next one better.”
Speaking about the impact of Hurricane Beryl and the need for Barbados and its neighbours to become more resilient, the Caribbean country director said the World Bank was “very active in providing support to those countries as well, but also Barbados to deal with the consequences of Hurricane Beryl”.
Debt repayment
“At the request of the Government, we put together a project to mitigate the consequences of the hurricane and in particular focus on the fisheries port and fisheries industry to help them cope with the disaster, to help the Government repair the damages to the fisheries port and and provide the needed support to the fishermen in terms of financial support,” she said in an interview.
In announcing the loan approval late last year, the World Bank said the US$54 million project included innovations to help Barbados better respond to disasters.
“The Climate Resilient Debt Clause gives the country the option of
prioritising disaster recovery instead of debt repayment for up to two years, while the Rapid Response Option permits channelling unused financing from other projects to address emergency needs when a crisis occurs,” it said.
“The project is the first in Latin America and the Caribbean to be approved with a Rapid Response Option.”
Burunciuc said that having been prepared “in a very short period of time”, Barbados’ Beryl Emergency Response and Recovery Project “is becoming effective”.
“The project has an interesting feature. Even when the project was prepared, the Government was already implementing some of the measures to deal with the consequences to the fisheries port and many of those expenditures are eligible to be reimbursed from the loan. So although the processing of some aspects is taking time, it is not impacting the activities.
“So this is very important, and this project is supposed to be implemented over four years, which will provide resources to the Government and also strengthen the overall disaster risk management.”
“It also has a technical study in terms of the future, because the Government is thinking about maybe enlarging the port or moving it to another location which may be less impacted by a hurricane, and it includes some pre-feasibility studies to look into it and help the Government strategise how to improve the fisheries industry in the future.”
After being graduated from World Bank financing in 1994, Barbados regained regular access last year, a move Burunciuc said signalled that these were not normal times.
“The world is changing, and it’s not changing for better, and it’s becoming more challenging for countries,” she said.
“For example, look at what’s happening with the disasters in the Caribbean, the frequency is increasing and the damages from those disasters are also going up. So countries like Barbados are facing these increasing challenges, and it’s important for them to be able to access all possible resources to help them deal with these challenges.”
She noted that Barbados would not only be benefiting from the World Bank’s financial resources but “also knowledge from worldwide, which is very beneficial”. (SC)
