CDB Ugres Countries To Strengthen Monitoring Frameworks For Climate Financing

Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) Borrowing Member Countries (BMCs) are being encouraged to institute strong monitoring, compliance, and accountability frameworks to ensure that corruption does not restrict access to climate finance, and to facilitate timely implementation of climate change interventions for the benefit of the region’s citizens.

President of the organisation, Dr. Hyginus ‘Gene’ Leon, in making the call, noted that the sizeable financing often required by countries to address infrastructural and economic vulnerabilities and recover from shocks, present opportunities for corruption to surface.

“Therefore, at all costs, access to affordable climate financing must be protected from maladministration and corruption,” he said.

Dr. Leon was delivering the keynote address to open the CDB’s second annual digital Caribbean Conference on Corruption, Compliance and Cybersecurity, on Tuesday (December 7).

The two-day event was held under the theme – ‘Ending Poverty and Driving Growth… Promoting Good Governance by Curbing Corruption, Money Laundering and Cybercrime in the Caribbean’.

Dr. Leon noted that the conversation around corruption and climate finance is timely, in the wake of the recently concluded United Nations (UN) 26^th Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP26).

He pointed out that, the need for climate finance and favourable access is a “matter of life and death” for most Small Island Developing States (SIDS), including Caribbean countries.

Dr. Leon said the International Anti-Corruption Resource Centre emphasises that corruption is threatening the attainment of global climate change goals.

The centre has advocated for the development of appropriate and effective anti-corruption tools and strategies, to ensure that climate finance is optimised for impact and success.

Dr. Leon pointed out that the matter of corruption is of “specific concern” to the CDB which, he indicated, “is at the forefront of the drive to access affordable climate finance for our BMCs.”

“Given the immense [challenges] throughout the region, our Member Countries cannot risk any form of sanction that could limit their access to these resources,” he noted.

The CDB President maintained that the importance of good governance, in this context, “cannot be overstated”, especially as the region will need to raise funding from private resources “which already account for more than 50 per cent of available climate financing.”

Dr. Leon said stakeholder interests have advised that to mobilise private investments in climate-related initiatives, developing countries, including those in the Caribbean, must institute adequate procurement safeguards and effective anti-corruption enforcement mechanisms.

“Without adequate and internationally-recognised standards on procurement and other governance mechanisms, our ability to mobilise the much-needed private investments will surely fall short,” he further pointed out.

Dr. Leon said that the region’s current economic and social challenges “should be more than enough incentive for us to take the appropriate action.”

“Instituting suitable systems for accountability and compliance are necessary for building investor confidence and attracting investment for the achievement of sustainable development,” he added.

The conference attracted thought leaders from over 40 countries globally to share and discuss new challenges and solutions for corruption, compliance, and cybersecurity in the Caribbean.

Speakers included experienced global anti-corruption practitioners, anti-money laundering specialists, cyber-crime professionals, development bankers, policy makers, regulators, law enforcement personnel, academics, private sector representatives, and civil society leaders.

Jamaica is one of the 19 CDB Borrowing Member Countries. The entity’s membership also includes four regional non-borrowing members – Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela; and five non-regional, non-borrowing members – Canada, China, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom.