Amid signs of economic recovery, Dr Gene Leon, president of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), is warning countries in the region that they cannot afford to be caught off-guard by another pandemic or the present threat of climate change. 

Speaking today (February 8) on Love FM Belize’s popular The Morning Show, Leon acknowledged the ‘structural legacy issues’ of regional institutions, like the CDB, in being responsive to the needs of borrowing member countries (BMCs). 

“We were faced, as a region and the world, [with] a massive shock, a pandemic shock. Before the pandemic, we have a number of what we would call structural legacy issues and, going forward, we have equally a potential for more shocks and, very critically, the climate issues that are lingering,” Leon explained.

“We’ve been making the point to countries [that] we need to see this as a three-part solution”: rescue, ‘How do we get out of the critical [situation] we are in now?’; recovery/post-rescue, ‘How do you begin to build?’; and then a repositioning, ‘How do we get ourselves to the next phase?’. And I say that to say the [Caribbean Developement] Bank is in exactly that position,” he added.

Leon, continuing, indicated that his inaugural visit to Belize hopes to steer the member CARICOM nation towards meaningful recovery from the raging pandemic.

Leon, who is leading a CDB delegation to the English-speaking country, also exchanged greetings with Belizean Prime Minister and CARICOM Chairman John Briceño during his inaugural visit to the Central American nation.

The mission to Belize comes at the time when the CDB is cognizant of its heavy involvement with respective public sector interests. 

“There is no other option but to envisage a Bank that is much more fit for purpose of the future, which would imply not only larger but, more critically, playing an intense role in the private-sector space,” the CDB president told hosts of The Business Perspective.

“We have at the moment a nine-out-of-10 focus in the public sector and where we have moved in the private sector, it is semi-public, in the sense that we are intermediating through development finance corporations. And so this link of helping the private sector not just undertake projects but projects that will drive development in a very coherent and holistic way, we have not done. And I think that’s the ‘pivoting’ that we need to do,” Leon contended.

Additionally, while the CDB currently issues technical assistance and financial support to regional borrowing member countries (BMCs), Leon suggested that there is “nothing limiting” the leveraging of private finance for development projects. This, he said, would greatly aid CDB members in their efforts to “reposition totally”.

“Going back to the pure, financing aspect of it, SDG-themed (sustainable development goal) bonds are not new; they are simply an elaboration of things that are already there. For example, you have blue bonds—so to the extent that blue is a theme of SDG, it falls in that category,” Leon argued.

“The same goes for green [bonds], but there is nothing limiting us to think about bonds for peace and security. Nothing preventing us from thinking about funds for poverty reduction; nothing preventing us from looking at themes for education, for gender equality and all the other 17 elements,” he added.

The CDB’s delegation in Belize is expected to announce four new trade initiatives to boost the sputtering economy on Thursday.

Also high on the CDB agenda are forging partnerships as well as innovation opportunities to propel the country’s growth and development.

Standing at 104.8 per cent at the end of 2021, Belize has the third-highest debt-to-GDP ratio among BMCs behind Barbados (135.8 per cent) and Suriname (128.9 per cent), statistics from the CDB indicated.

The press office of the Government of Belize, in a statement, said that Dr Leon would also be delivering Cabinet remarks later this afternoon. 

Already, the Leon-led CDB team has met with executives of the Central Bank of Belize as well as Christopher Coy, State Minister in the Ministry of Finance. 

Coy was also present at Tuesday’s meeting with Briceño. The leaders were joined by finance ministry CEOs Narda Garcia and Dr Osmond Martinez.