C'bean leaders to talk climate change, TT absent

Caribbean leaders are expected to meet in Washington, DC, next week for high-level discussions on building resilience to disasters and climate change in the region.

The discussions will take place at a conference hosted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank Group and the InterAmerican Development Bank (IDB) on November 26.

This follows the 2017 forum Unleashing Growth and Strengthening Resilience.

A release from the IDB said this conference will bring together key stakeholders, including senior policy-makers, multilateral development partners and the private sector, to explore incentives to shift the focus of policies towards building resilience and innovative disaster-risk financing policies and instruments that would help in the region.

Leaders will include chairman of Caricom Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness, as well as prime ministers Mia Mottley (Barbados), Roosevelt Skerrit (Dominica), Keith Mitchell (Grenada), Allen Chastanet (St Lucia), Hubert Alexander Minnis (Bahamas),and Leona Marlin-Romeo (St Maarten).

A representative of TT was not listed on the agenda.

The IMF’s Western Hemisphere Department says since 1950, 511 disasters worldwide have hit small states – that is, developing economies with populations of less than 1.5 million.

"Of these, 324 were in the Caribbean, home to a predominant share of small states, killing 250,000 people and affecting more than 24 million through injury and loss of homes and livelihoods."

In TT, in October, more than 5,000 people were affected by a national flooding disaster and in November parts of south Trinidad also reported damage from flooding.

The IMF said the region has typically suffered more damage than others. Countries in the region are seven times more likely to be hit by natural disasters than larger states.

Newsday messaged Planning Minister Camille Robinson-Regis for information on TT's attendance but received no response up to the time this story was published.