August 25, 2025 – Bridgetown, Barbados: An ambitious agenda, covering the multiplicity of risks that cut across every dimension of national development, has been unveiled for the 2nd Wider Caribbean Regional Risk Conference, set for September 3–4, 2025. The event, which will be delivered online and in-person in Barbados, is being jointly hosted by the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), CCRIF SPC – the Caribbean and Central America parametric insurance facility and development insurer, and CAF – Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean.
The conference agenda reflects the scale and complexity of the challenges facing the Wider Caribbean Region (WCR) and over 40 high-level experts from Caribbean, Central American, and international organisations are confirmed to participate. Speakers and presenters will discuss the economic, social, and environmental risks being faced by the WCR, as well as governance challenges, and share best practices, lessons learned and innovative solutions to advance the sustainability agenda of the WCR.
Organisers are aiming to attract more than 2,000 participants – virtually and face-to-face – to share their views, perspectives, and lived experience. Speakers, panelists, and other participants will draft policy statements to help shape initiatives and solutions to advance collective action to address the challenges faced across the WCR.
The conference includes 7 panel discussions and 3 café corners or expert dialogues covering topics such as:
- Economic Tensions, Uncertainty and Geoeconomic Confrontations: Navigating these new Global Economic Relations
- Sovereign Risk and Financial Sustainability in the Caribbean: Strategic Financing and MDB Interventions
- Loss and Damage and Climate Finance: Emerging Trends, Challenges and Opportunities
- Has the Global Sense of Societal Fragmentation Trickled Down to the Region? The Region’s Response
- The Role of Nature-Based Solutions: Keys to Building a Resilient Caribbean
- Unlocking Private Sector Potential & Risk-Sharing Solutions for Sustainable Development
Sessions will probe the ripple effects of intensifying global trade tensions, new tariff regimes, and shifting supply chains on the region’s growth prospects. Participants will also engage with rating agencies, central banks, and multilateral institutions on strategies to strengthen sovereign risk management, enhance fiscal resilience, and navigate the debt vulnerabilities that limit development space for SIDS.
The conference will also explore the new threats posed by misinformation and disinformation, while looking at both the threats and opportunities posed by AI. Focus will also be placed on sharing the importance of scaling up efforts around detection and attribution science as countries in the WCR seek to address climate justice issues, by enhancing climate-related loss and damage estimations and increasing access to climate finance.
Private sector development will also be in the spotlight, with leaders from finance, multilateral development banks, and entrepreneurship addressing how innovative risk-sharing mechanisms, blended finance, and co-financing models can unlock access to capital for micro, small, and medium enterprises and strengthen regional supply chains.
In addition, recognising that nature remains the region’s first line of defence, discussions will explore the role of ecosystem restoration and nature-based solutions in buffering climate risks, and the investments needed to scale up adaptation through the blue, green, and yellow economies. Another session will confront the rise of inequality and fragmentation in Caribbean societies, examining how community leadership, innovation, and policy reform can prevent instability and reinforce cohesion.
The conference will also include a Youth Forum - where 5th and 6th form students and other young persons from throughout the region will engage face-to-face and online to discuss their ideas around risk in their countries and communities and solutions and visions for advancing sustainable development in the WCR.
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