The In­ter-Amer­i­can Bank (IDB) on Fri­day said the Unit­ed King­dom (UK) has reaf­firmed its com­mit­ment to ad­vanc­ing sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean by an­nounc­ing that it will pro­vide a ro­bust sup­port pack­age to the IDB.

The Wash­ing­ton-based fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion said UK Sec­re­tary of State for For­eign, Com­mon­wealth and De­vel­op­ment Af­fairs David Lam­my and IDB Pres­i­dent Ilan Gold­fa­jn made the an­nounce­ment dur­ing a meet­ing in Bridgetown, Bar­ba­dos.

The IDB said the pack­age in­cludes sup­port for IDB In­vest’s pi­o­neer­ing “Orig­i­nate to Share” busi­ness mod­el, as well as plans to in­vest up to £80 mil­lion (US$100 mil­lion) in its cap­i­tal in­crease, with the po­ten­tial of a five­fold in­crease in the UK’s share in the in­sti­tu­tion’s cap­i­tal.

“This con­tri­bu­tion re­flects the UK’s con­fi­dence in IDB In­vest and its track record of work­ing with the UK to max­i­mize pri­vate-sec­tor-led de­vel­op­ment in the re­gion,” the IDB said. 

It said the UK has al­so sig­nalled its sup­port for the re­plen­ish­ment of IDB Lab, the IDB’s in­no­va­tion lab­o­ra­to­ry and ven­ture cap­i­tal arm. 

In ad­di­tion, the IDB said the UK is of­fer­ing up to £15 mil­lion (US$19 mil­lion) to fund “tar­get­ed ini­tia­tives in the Caribbean.”

This in­cludes £5 mil­lion (US$6.3 mil­lion) to sup­port the ONE Caribbean Mul­ti­donor Trust Fund, which pro­vides a strate­gic frame­work for im­prov­ing cli­mate adap­ta­tion and re­silience, cit­i­zen se­cu­ri­ty, pri­vate-sec­tor en­gage­ment and food se­cu­ri­ty, the IDB said. 

It said the fund pro­motes re­gion­al co­op­er­a­tion and aims to max­i­mize re­sources, strength­en the ca­pac­i­ty of both the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors to tack­le de­vel­op­ment chal­lenges, and lever­age economies of scale. 

The IDB said the fund di­rect­ly ben­e­fits Bar­ba­dos, Be­lize, Guyana, Ja­maica, Suri­name, The Ba­hamas, and Trinidad and To­ba­go. 

In ad­di­tion, the IDB said the UK is pro­vid­ing up to £10 mil­lion (US$12.7 mil­lion) to sup­port COM­PETE CARIBBEAN+, “a new pro­gramme that aims to fos­ter sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth while in­creas­ing the com­pet­i­tive­ness of Caribbean com­pa­nies.”

It al­so aims to pro­mote cli­mate ac­tion and gen­der equal­i­ty by shar­ing best prac­tices and the lat­est de­vel­op­ment re­search with both pri­vate and pub­lic-sec­tor ac­tors, the IDB said.

It said the pro­gramme specif­i­cal­ly aims to ben­e­fit vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties in small-is­land na­tions. 

“The Unit­ed King­dom has been a stead­fast part­ner in sup­port­ing the IDB’s work in ad­dress­ing some of the press­ing chal­lenges in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean,” Gold­fa­jn said. “To­geth­er, we are ad­vanc­ing cit­i­zen se­cu­ri­ty, bol­ster­ing cli­mate re­silience, and cre­at­ing eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ties to im­prove lives and strength­en com­mu­ni­ties across the re­gion.” 

Lam­my said at the Re­gion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and Jus­tice Sum­mit in Bridgetown: “As the son of Guyanese par­ents, I am liv­ing proof of the ties the UK shares with the Caribbean. 

“Build­ing our ties with these fast-grow­ing economies in the re­gion will make the UK and the Caribbean safer, stronger, more pros­per­ous and more re­silient against the cli­mate cri­sis,” he added.

The IDB said these con­tri­bu­tions from the UK come in ad­di­tion to the UK Sus­tain­able In­fra­struc­ture Pro­gramme, or UK­SIP, which was launched in 2017 and is a flag­ship part­ner­ship be­tween the IDB and the UK’s For­eign, Com­mon­wealth & De­vel­op­ment Of­fice. 

“The pro­gramme show­cas­es the pow­er of blend­ed fi­nance and pub­lic-pri­vate syn­er­gies,” the IDB said. “Through the pro­gramme, the UK us­es con­ces­sion­al fi­nanc­ing to sup­port blend­ed fi­nance ini­tia­tives that en­able IDB In­vest to re­duce fund­ing costs for spe­cif­ic projects.

“This is com­ple­ment­ed by tech­ni­cal as­sis­tance from IDB op­er­a­tions, which ad­dress­es reg­u­la­to­ry and in­sti­tu­tion­al re­forms to im­prove the op­er­at­ing en­vi­ron­ment for busi­ness­es,” it added. “To­geth­er, these el­e­ments en­sure long-term project sus­tain­abil­i­ty and max­i­mize de­vel­op­ment im­pact.” 

Now in Phase II, the IDB said UK­SIP re­cy­cles re­flows from Phase I projects to ex­pand the pro­gramme’s scope to cli­mate adap­ta­tion, re­silience and na­ture-based so­lu­tions, while it reach­es be­yond Mex­i­co, Brazil, Colom­bia and Pe­ru to in­clude small-and-is­land-coun­tries in the Caribbean basin and Cen­tral Amer­i­ca. 

With po­ten­tial UK con­tri­bu­tions of up to £66 mil­lion (US$84 mil­lion) by 2029, in­clud­ing £17 mil­lion (US$21.6 mil­lion) al­ready avail­able this year for Blend­ed Fi­nance op­er­a­tions, UK­SIP’s to­tal fund­ing could reach £177.5 mil­lion (US$223.5 mil­lion), the IDB said. 

BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos, Dec    14, CMC –

CMC/nk/kb/2024