- Governors agree on next steps for ONE Caribbean regional integration program.
NASSAU, The Bahamas – The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) held its XIII Annual Consultation with the governors of IDB Caribbean member countries on February 2-3 in Nassau, The Bahamas. The gathering was part of preparations for the IDB and IDB Invest Annual Meetings, which will take place on March 26-30 in Chile.
This high-level dialogue included representatives from The Bahamas, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago.
At the conclusion of the proceedings, IDB president Ilan Goldfajn, said:
“The IDB has been a steadfast partner for the Caribbean for over half a century. Our consultations with Caribbean governors ahead of our annual meetings in Chile provided an opportunity to discuss how our regional initiatives like ONE Caribbean can boost growth and resilience, and more generally, how our IDBImpact+ reforms can deliver more scale and impact for our membership as a whole.”
Caribbean economies have been among the best performing in Latin America and the Caribbean. This success has opened opportunities for Caribbean countries to invest in key priority areas. The annual consultations provide a platform for dialogue between the IDB and the region’s ministers on how to take advantage of these opportunities and how the IDB can support them through financing, knowledge, and technical assistance.
The IDB’s executive team presented advances in the IDBImpact+ agenda, a reform effort that seeks to boost the impact and scale of the bank’s work by increasing lending capacity with a focus on reducing poverty, tackling climate change, and promoting sustainable growth. The IDB is advancing reforms and initiatives, eleven of which will be presented at the upcoming annual meetings in Santiago.
The executive team also discussed the achievements of ONE Caribbean, a regional initiative launched in 2024 to address climate resilience, citizen security, productivity and growth, and food security. These four priorities were identified by Caribbean countries, through a process of dialogue with the IDB, as common challenges facing the region. ONE Caribbean has launched six early initiatives, including ONE Safe Caribbean, which aims to take on cross-border organized crime and a program to provide cybersecurity assistance to governments.
The annual consultation was also the occasion for signing an agreement with the government of The Bahamas to start a water and sanitation project.
IDB’s impact on the Caribbean region’s development
In 2024, the IDB approved US$790 million for new projects and programs that ranged from a debt-for-marine conservation swap in The Bahamas to a debt-for-climate resilience operation that generated US$125 million in Barbados to a US$120 million private-sector initiative focused on helping Caribbean companies advance the energy transition. For 2025, the IDB’s portfolio of projects for the Caribbean amounts to over US$1.1 billion for infrastructure resilience, skill training and other priorities.
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