Roadtown, Tortola - The economic turmoil and the challenges around the world and in the region, including the Virgin Islands (UK), were the focus of the 39th Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) held in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Financial Secretary Mr. Neil Smith and Policy Analyst Mr. Jeremiah Frett attended the five-day meeting, which the Government of the United Kingdom hosted from May 25-29.  

Financial Secretary Smith told the Department of Information and Public Relations that high on the meeting’s agenda was the global economic downturn. “The discussion centred on the implications that this situation will have for the bank and the extra assistance that the bank would have to give the borrowing members,” he said.

Mr. Smith also said there were two specifically important outcomes from this year’s meeting, the approval of a strategic plan and the implementation of a special development fund.  Speaking about the fund he explained, “It is a special fund that is set-up to assist borrowing member countries who have special challenges or have programmes that need special consolidation via grants.”

He added that any member country, which meets the criteria, and submits a well-developed and defendable programme to the CDB, would be considered and “most likely be approved”.  While “all member countries contribute to this Special Development Fund,” he said one of the country’s high on the agenda to get assistance is Haiti. 

Mr. Smith said the benefits of being a regional member of the CDB are having borrowing privileges and contributing to the governance of the organisation.

In his statement at the meeting, the Governor for the United Kingdom Overseas Territories Dr. the Honourable Lowell Lewis, Chief Minister of Montserrat, stated that there is a growing imperative for smarter, innovative and efficient ways to approach the regional challenges. “We must find them and implement the changes and systems necessary to make our economies better,” he said.

Governors held discussion sessions on Climate Change and Caribbean Economics: Implications, Adaptations, and Risk Management and Management of Risk in the Financial Sector.

They also attended the Tenth William G. Demas Memorial Lecture, which was given by Professor Rhoda Reddock, Deputy Principal of the St. Augustine Campus of the University of the West Indies who spoke on the topic What Now for Caribbean People and their Leaders? – Reflections on the Current Social and Economic Crisis from a Gender Perspective.

The meeting was chaired by the Governor for the United Kingdom, Mr. Michael Foster, Under-Secretary for International Development. The Governor for The Bahamas has been elected Chairman of the Board of Governors, to serve up to and during the 40th Annual Meeting to be held in The Bahamas in 2010.