BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – The second wider Caribbean Regional Risk Conference began here on Wednesday, with regional countries being told that economic instability is a channel through which global risks are transmitted and amplified, deepening their roots and cascading across the region.
“Crises that begin elsewhere land swiftly on our shores, turning geopolitical uncertainty into food insecurity, financial market tremors into budget crises, and inflation abroad into pressure at the kitchen table for many of our people,” the President of the Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), Daniel Best said as he delivered the feature address at the two-day second wider Caribbean Regional Risk Conference here.
He told the more than 1,400 delegates attending the event, being held under the theme “Building a Resilient Wider Caribbean Region: A Collective Vision for Integrated Risk Management in a Changing World,” that this fragility is not a standalone issue.
“It is intertwined with the climate crisis, which tightens the grip of debt and magnifies every shock. Flooding destroys infrastructure. Hurricanes halt tourism. Droughts reduce output. Each disaster strains fiscal space and makes economic recovery harder.”
Best said that this is the trap the region must escape, noting that “because without economic resilience, there can be no sustainable development.
“And without a strong, vibrant, and inclusive economy, we will remain vulnerable to every storm, whether meteorological or financial,” he said, adding that social inequality is a third risk that the region has to confront.
“In our region and across the world, inequality is quietly eroding trust in institutions and slowing our progress toward sustainable development.
It is a silent crisis. But its effects are loud, corrosive, and deeply felt. When children are denied access to quality, equitable education, their potential is stifled, and our future workforce is diminished. And when young people, women and men alike, cannot find decent work in our region, frustration grows, talent is wasted, and innovation stalls.”
Best said that if any individual is excluded from healthcare, the cost is borne by everyone through increased public spending, reduced productivity, and declining community well-being.
“If women, persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples, and marginalized communities are locked out of opportunity, we lose the creativity, dynamism, and diversity that fuel inclusive growth of our region.
“Friends, inequality multiplies every other risk we face. It leaves some communities overexposed and underprotected, deepening vulnerability in the face of climate shocks and economic instability. It limits the reach of our economic growth. And it undermines the very resilience we seek to build.”
The CDB president stated that, in fact, the 2025 Global Risks Report warns of a troubling trend: a rise in social fragmentation, mistrust, and growing pessimism about the future.
“People across the world are losing faith in public institutions and economic systems. And where inequality festers, social cohesion breaks down, creating fertile ground for discontent, disengagement, and disillusionment.
“We cannot afford to lose our people to pessimism. We need the talents and contributions of all our citizens. Our people have always been our greatest asset,” he said, recalling that at the CDB’s 55th Annual Board of Governors meeting, he spoke about the focus on building regional institutions to address these challenges.
“An unequal Caribbean cannot withstand the polycrisis of our time. And the danger is that the longer inequality persists, the harder it becomes to chart a united course through crisis. If we are serious about sustainable development, then equity must be our compass.”
Best said that as the region confronts the growing web of risks threatening the wider Caribbean region, “we must also confront the urgency for us to do things differently. We cannot afford to respond to interconnected crises with disconnected strategies.
“Too often, our development responses are fragmented, designed in isolation, implemented in silos, and misaligned with the complexity of the challenges we face,” he said, asking the question, “How do we fix it?.
He said first, there is a need for policy coherence.
“We must align climate, economic, and social policies so that they reinforce each other. That means embedding climate resilience into fiscal planning, ensuring that national budgets account for disaster risk and environmental sustainability.
“It also means designing social protection systems like cash transfers and unemployment insurance that can scale up during climate shocks, so that vulnerable populations are not left behind. These measures allow us to have real impact on the ground, reduce duplication, improve efficiency, and build long-term resilience.”
He said, secondly, that effective risk management requires countries to break institutional silos, emphasizing that ministries of finance, education, health, and environment must come together proactively before a crisis occurs to plan and design policies.
“Our development partners, too, have a critical role to play in facilitating joint programming, pooled funding, and harmonised implementation. We must lead by example and work collaboratively through joint partnerships to support our region.”
Best said that data and risk mapping are also vital, noting that integrated data systems help visualize how these risks overlap and where vulnerabilities are hidden.
“In the Caribbean, we need to overlay flood-prone areas with poverty maps, and match climate risk exposure with public infrastructure spending and revolutionize how we target social protection, allocate resources, and build early warning systems.
“We lack the integrated geospatial data and analytics infrastructure we need to make informed cross-sectoral decisions, and that must change. Because what we cannot see, we cannot measure, and therefore, we cannot solve.”
Best said that local communities are the most significant source of wisdom, resilience, and innovation in the wider region. He said that whether it’s indigenous knowledge about shifting weather patterns or grassroots experience in disaster response, communities across this region are best placed to define solutions that work.
“ So, we must create genuine structures to engage them as partners from the very start. This is how we bank on our own, build trust and strengthen resilience,” he said, adding that traditional funding models do not meet the scale or complexity of today’s risks.
“We must tap into innovative financing sources, and develop more models for blended finance, concessional financing, green bonds, and resilience-linked resources and instruments that crowd in capital and deliver triple-bottom-line returns: economic, social, and environmental. “These tools give private investors the confidence to co-finance renewable energy, digital infrastructure, and small business growth. And we must ensure that financing is deployed through a lens of equity and justice.”
Best described as a two-day event sponsored by the CDB, the Caribbean Catastrophic Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF), and the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF), crises like climate change, pandemics, and economic shocks do not respect borders. “By deepening regional coordination, we can pool resources, share infrastructure, and harmonise policy frameworks across countries. We must continue to invest jointly in disaster preparedness, renewable energy, and social protection systems that are stronger because they are shared.
“Friends, the path forward is clear, but it won’t be easy. If we are to navigate the era of polycrisis, then we must quickly abandon fragmentation and embrace this integrated approach.”
He stated that the CDB is working closely with countries, regional institutions, and global partners, including the CAF, the World Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank, to enhance delivery, reduce transaction costs, and mitigate fragmentation, particularly in fragile and complex settings.
He stated that over the next five years, the bank will allocate at least 3 percent of all its approvals to climate adaptation and mitigation.
“ And under our largest ever Special Development Fund, totaling US$460 million, we are going even further, aiming for 40 per cent climate financing.”
He said to strengthen our pipeline of bankable climate projects, the CDB has approved a new Project Preparation Facility, securing an expanded GCF accreditation from US$50 million to US$250 million, “allowing us to support larger, more impactful interventions across the region.
“We are also working with the Green Climate Fund to establish a Regional Platform for Catalysing Climate Action, an initiative focused on accelerating the sustainable energy transition, scaling up climate finance instruments, supporting youth capacity building, and
Enabling deeper regional connectivity.
“We are putting climate resilience at the heart of Caribbean development. And on the global stage, we will not relent in our advocacy and recommendations. We will continue to champion a fundamental reimagining of international financial architecture, one that reflects the realities of our small island economies and the urgency of our development needs,” Best said.
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