The World Bank has ap­proved US$100 mil­lion in fi­nanc­ing to sup­port Bar­ba­dos’ low-car­bon eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment and re­silience to cli­mate change.

“I can­not un­der­score enough the ne­ces­si­ty of sup­port, such as this, to mid­dle-in­come small is­land de­vel­op­ing states,” Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley said.

“This loan al­lows Bar­ba­dos to ad­vance its ef­forts to achieve cli­mate re­silience, in­clud­ing con­tin­u­ing our shift to clean en­er­gy. This ul­ti­mate­ly al­lows us to bet­ter shield Bar­ba­di­ans from the worst ex­cess­es of the cli­mate cri­sis while cre­at­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for green and blue jobs and in­vest­ment as we adapt to our new re­al­i­ty,” she added.

The Wash­ing­ton-based fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion said the Bar­ba­dos Green and Re­silient De­vel­op­ment Pol­i­cy Loan has two main pil­lars.

The first fo­cus­es on green and blue re­silient de­vel­op­ment, which in­cludes a new law on wa­ter reuse, the adop­tion of a cli­mate change and agri­cul­ture pol­i­cy and the es­tab­lish­ment on an En­vi­ron­ment Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Fund, all of which are crit­i­cal since Bar­ba­dos is a wa­ter-scarce coun­try.

“This pil­lar al­so sup­ports the re­duc­tion of ma­rine pol­lu­tion, and man­age­ment of nat­ur­al re­sources, in the con­text of cli­mate vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty,” the World Bank said, adding that the sec­ond pro­gramme pil­lar fa­cil­i­tates Bar­ba­dos’ low car­bon and re­silient in­fra­struc­ture de­vel­op­ment through the im­ple­men­ta­tion of new stan­dards for agency-lev­el dis­as­ter man­age­ment plans, in­sti­tu­tion­al re­views of na­tion­al emer­gency man­age­ment agen­cies, as well as in­creased re­new­able en­er­gy ca­pac­i­ty and sup­port for cli­mate change adap­ta­tion and mit­i­ga­tion ef­forts.

The bank said Bar­ba­dos’ heavy de­pen­dence on im­port­ed fos­sil fu­els ex­pos­es the coun­try to in­ter­na­tion­al price fluc­tu­a­tions, there­by im­pact­ing the com­pet­i­tive­ness of pro­duc­tive sec­tors. Ris­ing fu­el prices al­so ex­ac­er­bate the in­creas­ing vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of Bar­ba­dos’ eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery, adding to ex­ist­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties.

“The re­al­i­ties of the Caribbean as one of the world’s most vul­ner­a­ble re­gions de­mands that we take strong ac­tion,” said Lil­ia Bu­run­ci­uc, World Bank’s Di­rec­tor for the Caribbean.

“The World Bank is pleased to sup­port Bar­ba­dos – and oth­er Caribbean coun­tries – as they strive for eco­nom­ic and en­vi­ron­men­tal re­silience, ful­ly ac­knowl­edg­ing that the two are in­ex­tri­ca­bly linked”, she added.

Last year, the World Bank Group pro­vid­ed over US$26 bil­lion in cli­mate in­vest­ments to de­vel­op­ing coun­tries – in­clud­ing those in the Caribbean – and is on track to ex­ceed that sum dur­ing this fis­cal year.

Fur­ther, the World Bank says its Cli­mate Ac­tion Plan com­mits 35 per cent of its fi­nanc­ing to cli­mate ac­tion and its Coun­try Cli­mate De­vel­op­ment Re­ports are in­no­v­a­tive, coun­try-fo­cused di­ag­nos­tics which sup­port coun­tries in achiev­ing low-car­bon, re­silient growth.