Ky­ron Reg­is

ky­ron.reg­is@guardian.co.tt

The CARI­COM Chair and Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter, Mia Mot­t­ley, has ex­pressed that in the midst of COVID-19, some small is­land de­vel­op­ing states will suc­cess­ful­ly re-en­gi­neer their economies, while some will col­lapse there­by hav­ing a rip­ple ef­fect on the na­tion and world.

Speak­ing in her ad­dress to the 73rd World Health As­sem­bly, Mot­t­ley said: “Many coun­tries will ei­ther have an or­der­ly re­struc­tur­ing of debt or at the very least a debt mora­to­ri­um that pro­vides cer­tain­ty for both the bor­row­er and the lender, or they will have a dis­or­der­ly un­rav­el­ling that will cre­ate a cri­sis both with­in their re­spec­tive coun­tries and with­in the glob­al fi­nan­cial mar­kets.”

Mot­t­ley ex­plained that this is the rea­son the re­gion be­lieves that there should be ma­ture and rel­e­vant con­ver­sa­tions for mid­dle in­come, small is­land de­vel­op­ing states across the globe es­pe­cial­ly as it re­lates to our debt oblig­a­tions in the midst of this pan­dem­ic.

The Bar­ba­dos PM gave ref­er­ence to the coun­try she leads, not­ing: “Bar­ba­dos took a ma­jor leap of faith when we re­struc­tured our debt in the last 18 months.”

She in­di­cat­ed that the re­struc­tur­ing in­clud­ed nat­ur­al dis­as­ter claus­es in the na­tion’s do­mes­tic and ex­ter­nal debt in­stru­ments that pro­vide for greater fis­cal space to be cre­at­ed through a mora­to­ri­um on the pay­ment of prin­ci­pal. It al­so al­lowed for a cap­i­tal­iza­tion of the in­ter­est, should the coun­try face a nat­ur­al dis­as­ter.

Mot­t­ley ar­gued the cer­tain­ty nat­ur­al dis­as­ter claus­es pro­vide is in­creased fis­cal space. She con­tin­ued: “Were this pro­vi­sion avail­able in the con­text of this pan­dem­ic, it would bring tremen­dous re­lief to those coun­tries and bet­ter po­si­tion many of us to re­build in a post-COVID-19 en­vi­ron­ment.”

She added that the Caribbean’s small states have been suf­fer­ing from high debt and low growth for decades.

The CARI­COM Chair al­so as­sert­ed, that be­cause the Caribbean re­gion’s economies ranks among the most trav­el and tourism-de­pen­dent economies in the world, it has ex­posed its peo­ple and economies in a way that it has not ex­pe­ri­enced since be­com­ing in­de­pen­dent na­tions more than fifty years ago, in some in­stances.

Mot­t­ley con­tend­ed that this cur­rent cri­sis calls for glob­al lead­er­ship that will al­low the re­gion to re­build its hu­man­i­ty, en­vi­ron­ment and the eq­ui­ty so bad­ly need­ed in its so­ci­eties and economies.

She said that COVID-19 has not on­ly brought peo­ple clos­er to­geth­er, but it has equal­ly cast a light on the in­equities in so­ci­eties.