At a time when there is grow­ing con­cern about the lack of For­eign Di­rect In­vest­ment (FDI) in the Caribbean, a re­view of the com­mu­ni­ca­tion ap­proach is be­ing ad­vo­cat­ed by the head of a cli­mate fi­nance ad­vi­so­ry firm.

Ali­cia ES Ri­ley, founder and man­ag­ing part­ner of the Ely­si­um Group, ar­gues that Caribbean na­tions cur­rent­ly strug­gle to ac­cess vi­tal cli­mate fi­nance be­cause they pri­ori­tise high­light­ing vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties over demon­strat­ing gov­er­nance and trans­paren­cy.

In a doc­u­ment dis­cussing the top­ic, Ri­ley, a doc­tor­al can­di­date in in­ter­na­tion­al busi­ness and sus­tain­able fi­nance, stat­ed that the use of mis­aligned poli­cies and frag­ment­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tion has cost the Caribbean bil­lions and has led to in­ter­na­tion­al funds ig­nor­ing Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States.

She point­ed to the tenth an­nu­al Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals re­port re­leased by the Unit­ed Na­tions in Ju­ly 2025 to sup­port her con­cerns.

She said, “The re­port high­light­ed glob­al im­prove­ments in ed­u­ca­tion, health, dig­i­tal ac­cess, dis­ease con­trol and re­new­able en­er­gy. How­ev­er, it de­scribed this progress as ‘frag­ile and un­equal,’ and iden­ti­fied the re­gions that con­tributed to this win; un­for­tu­nate­ly, the Caribbean failed to make it in­to this glob­al ledger.”

Ri­ley con­tin­ued, “The re­port al­so iden­ti­fied sig­nif­i­cant vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties in Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States, in­clud­ing high lev­els of work­ing pover­ty, high food prices, stag­nant labour in­comes, low pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and cli­mate risks.

“For years, we have heard that cli­mate fi­nance is com­plex and bu­reau­crat­ic. Nu­mer­ous stud­ies have ex­am­ined ac­cess bar­ri­ers, debt chal­lenges and tech­ni­cal gaps. Many tech­nocrats have spent years ad­vo­cat­ing for shift­ing el­i­gi­bil­i­ty from in­come to vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and for de­vel­op­ing fair­er mea­sures for cli­mate-ex­posed states.”

More re­cent stud­ies have shown this trend has con­tin­ued.

In the re­port by Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Dy­nam­ics 2026: In­vest­ing in Sus­tain­able and Re­silient De­vel­op­ment pub­lished un­der the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al of the Or­gan­i­sa­tion for Eco­nom­ic Co-op­er­a­tion and De­vel­op­ment (OECD) and the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB), which was re­leased in April, the lack of FDI was al­so high­light­ed as a con­tin­u­ing con­cern.

The OECD re­port said, “Build­ing re­silient and sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment is a strate­gic im­per­a­tive for the Caribbean, a re­gion where in­fra­struc­ture gaps re­main large, and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to cli­mate haz­ards is high. Ad­vanc­ing in this di­rec­tion will re­quire large in­vest­ments, not on­ly as a de­fen­sive mea­sure, but al­so for pro­tect­ing liveli­hoods, pre­serv­ing nat­ur­al as­sets and sus­tain­ing long-term de­vel­op­ment.”

The pub­li­ca­tion stat­ed that while there had been pock­ets of FDI over the years, the Caribbean was in need of new in­vest­ment to achieve mod­ern goals with­in the re­gion.

Ri­ley, who ex­plained she had spent much of the past four years study­ing the sus­tain­able fi­nance ecosys­tem, ex­plained, “Even though the Unit­ed Na­tions fi­nal­ly adopt­ed the Mul­ti­di­men­sion­al Vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty In­dex, the glob­al fi­nan­cial sys­tem has yet to op­er­a­tionalise it. Glob­al funds have been slow to im­ple­ment this prin­ci­ple, so the diplo­mat­ic achieve­ment has not trans­lat­ed in­to prac­ti­cal change. Con­ces­sion­al fi­nance for our most vul­ner­a­ble na­tions re­mains re­strict­ed by out­dat­ed in­come cri­te­ria.”

She con­tin­ued, “I’ve come to dis­cov­er that some funds ex­ist out­side this stra­tum. How­ev­er, to ac­cess them, gov­ern­ments must first build trust and demon­strate com­mit­ment rather than make mere de­c­la­ra­tions. They must es­tab­lish them­selves as cred­i­ble stew­ards of sus­tain­abil­i­ty, with the po­lit­i­cal will and gov­er­nance sys­tems need­ed to as­sure dis­tant donors they can be trust­ed with grant-based de­vel­op­ment fi­nance.”

The Ely­si­um Group founder urged Caribbean min­is­ters, per­ma­nent sec­re­taries and pol­i­cy tech­nocrats to ad­just their strat­e­gy to make these funds pay greater at­ten­tion.

“We must be­gin with the end in mind,” she said. “Trans­lat­ed, this means start­ing with clear strate­gic ob­jec­tives: re­view­ing na­tion­al pri­or­i­ties and the fun­der’s el­i­gi­bil­i­ty cri­te­ria be­fore draft­ing any na­tion­al cli­mate pol­i­cy. Na­tion­al poli­cies should align with Ar­ti­cles 4 and 7 of the Paris Agree­ment. With­in their Na­tion­al­ly De­ter­mined Con­tri­bu­tions, coun­tries must ex­plic­it­ly state how each cli­mate and adap­ta­tion goal ad­vances the Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals.”

Ri­ley con­tin­ued, “The next steps are roll­out and in­te­gra­tion. Con­trary to ex­pec­ta­tions, ini­ti­at­ing this shift is not cost­ly. While true sys­temic in­te­gra­tion takes time, a na­tion­al pol­i­cy align­ment can be launched via vir­tu­al plat­forms in a mat­ter of weeks. The key is an all-of-gov­ern­ment ap­proach, where every min­istry pro­gramme or ini­tia­tive is linked to a sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment in­di­ca­tor with­in the Na­tion­al Cli­mate Pol­i­cy, sup­port­ed by a clear com­mu­ni­ca­tions frame­work that en­sures each min­istry un­der­stands its role in the over­all mes­sag­ing arc.”

Ri­ley ex­plained that her 15 years as a com­mu­ni­ca­tions strate­gist had shown her var­i­ous suc­cess­ful tech­niques to build trust, shape brand nar­ra­tive and per­cep­tion, and tilt the de­ci­sions of the peo­ple who con­trol mon­ey.

“Telling a na­tion’s sus­tain­abil­i­ty sto­ry, out loud and on the record, should be em­braced as the first move on the fund­ing jour­ney, not the last. This is al­ready ac­cept­ed in oth­er sec­tors of pub­lic com­mu­ni­ca­tion. We see it in elec­tion cam­paigns and coun­try-brand cam­paigns that gov­ern­ments run to at­tract for­eign di­rect in­vest­ment,” she said.

“When ex­e­cut­ed well, com­mu­ni­ca­tion has the pow­er to al­ter how funds see the re­gion, and where it can­not move the whole re­gion, it moves spe­cif­ic is­lands, build­ing and broad­cast­ing a cred­i­ble record of com­mit­ment. En­ti­ties that align with tac­ti­cal sus­tain­able mo­tives be­come trust­ed. This is brand­ing at its most ba­sic, and in a field this tech­ni­cal, it can feel al­most naive to say so, yet the truth is: com­mu­ni­ca­tion can ei­ther el­e­vate or erode how a for­eign en­ti­ty per­ceives a coun­try and its pol­i­cy­mak­ers. It reach­es be­yond bi­lat­er­al ties and geopo­lit­i­cal align­ment to the one thing a fun­der de­pends on to wire mon­ey: rep­u­ta­tion.”

She ex­plained that there were good ex­am­ples of that ap­proach in the pri­vate sec­tor.

“ANSA McAL pub­lish­es a Sus­tain­abil­i­ty and ESG Da­ta Dis­clo­sure Re­port and has built the sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment goals in­to how it mea­sures its own busi­ness­es, down to the kilo­grammes of car­bon diox­ide it re­cap­tures at its brew­eries. Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings, GraceKennedy and many oth­er re­gion­al play­ers re­port on en­vi­ron­men­tal and so­cial stan­dards in every mar­ket in which they op­er­ate,” she said.

“None of them built mar­ket con­fi­dence by fo­cus­ing on their vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. They earned it by stat­ing their in­ten­tions first and then prov­ing them, quar­ter af­ter quar­ter, with val­ue a fun­der can­not ig­nore.”

She ex­plained that while the Caribbean has con­sis­tent­ly ex­pressed what it needs, it of­ten omit­ted key el­e­ments with re­gard to ac­count­able ac­tion and sus­tain­abil­i­ty.

“When a Caribbean state seeks sup­port from the Green Cli­mate Fund, the Adap­ta­tion Fund or the Loss and Dam­age Fund, it of­ten presents its needs and am­bi­tions. Still, it lacks trust­ed ev­i­dence and a con­sis­tent sus­tain­abil­i­ty tone,” she said.

“Un­like Massy, which courts in­vestors with au­dit­ed, mul­ti-year da­ta, re­gion­al gov­ern­ments of­fer nar­ra­tive am­bi­tion with­out em­pir­i­cal proof. As a re­sult, fun­ders hes­i­tate, im­pose ad­di­tion­al con­di­tions, or chan­nel funds through trust­ed in­ter­me­di­aries, caus­ing de­lays. This is of­ten la­belled a ca­pac­i­ty prob­lem, but in re­al­i­ty, it is a po­si­tion­ing is­sue ob­scured by the term ‘ca­pac­i­ty,’ which avoids ad­dress­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.”

She said the re­gion­al gov­ern­ments could in­te­grate the sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment goals in­to every com­mu­ni­ty pro­gramme and pub­lic ex­pen­di­ture as mea­sur­able sys­tems, sim­i­lar to how list­ed com­pa­nies track per­for­mance.

Ri­ley ex­plained, “Ex­ist­ing tools such as the SDG In­te­grat­ed Mon­i­tor­ing Frame­work, Unit­ed Na­tions Vol­un­tary Na­tion­al Re­view guide­lines, Dev­In­fo dash­boards and the UNDP Ac­cel­er­a­tor Lab can help gov­ern­ments sup­port this ap­proach, par­tic­u­lar­ly by help­ing them stand out in the grant-based de­vel­op­ment fi­nance space. “

She con­tin­ued, “Each so­cial grant the gov­ern­ment dis­burs­es, in­fra­struc­ture project, clin­ic and gov­ern­ment sub­ven­tion should have an as­so­ci­at­ed sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment goal, in­di­ca­tor, base­line, and tar­get. Im­ple­men­ta­tion can be­gin with a few flag­ship pro­grammes, such as a na­tion­al school meal ini­tia­tive or a com­mu­ni­ty health dri­ve, by at­tach­ing met­rics, as­sign­ing ac­count­abil­i­ty, pub­lish­ing base­lines and com­mit­ting to quar­ter­ly pub­lic re­port­ing.

“This builds trust and demon­strates com­mit­ment to fun­ders. When gov­ern­ments can pro­vide this ev­i­dence, they are viewed as coun­ter­par­ties rather than sup­pli­cants. In the world of fi­nance, fun­ders re­spond more quick­ly to coun­ter­par­ties.”

She closed stat­ing, “Let me end by re­vers­ing the re­gion’s usu­al ap­proach. For 10 years, we have told our donors we lack ca­pac­i­ty or that our project de­sign is weak. In re­al­i­ty, we are skilled at de­vel­op­ing pol­i­cy but have not cul­ti­vat­ed cul­tures of strate­gic com­mu­ni­ca­tions, gov­er­nance, or im­ple­men­ta­tion.

“The US$1.3 tril­lion an­nu­al­ly pledged at Belém to­ward 2035 will go to gov­ern­ments that can demon­strate ef­fec­tive use, not just de­scribe need.”

Ri­ley said the Caribbean must now choose ei­ther to con­tin­ue re­fin­ing its nar­ra­tive or to ur­gent­ly piv­ot and pro­vide clear, com­pelling ev­i­dence of com­mit­ment to am­bi­tion and ex­e­cu­tion.

“The Caribbean must now choose ei­ther to con­tin­ue re­fin­ing its nar­ra­tive or to ur­gent­ly piv­ot and pro­vide clear, com­pelling ev­i­dence of com­mit­ment to am­bi­tion and ex­e­cu­tion rigour.

Ul­ti­mate­ly, coun­tries must com­mu­ni­cate strate­gi­cal­ly, act de­ci­sive­ly, and mea­sure trans­par­ent­ly to at­tract and se­cure the fund­ing our re­gion ur­gent­ly needs,” Ri­ley stressed.