Region’s debt trajectory is going down – World Bank

The World Bank is seeing a positive fiscal shift in the narrative of the Caribbean despite reports by other entities.

“The historical narrative has been low growth, high debt. The shift that is happening is that the growth remains low, but it is not depressed. It’s not as bad as many of the countries in South America or many other parts of the world,” The World Bank’s Tahseen Sayed told a gathering at the National Insurance Services (NIS) conference room last week.

Sayed is the World Bank Country Director for Caribbean countries and was in St Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) to attend a Resilient Urban Development Technical Workshop for Arnos Vale and Kingstown.

The workshop focussed on the revitalization of Kingstown and the development of Arnos Vale and ran from March 20 to 21.

Addressing a packed hall which included Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves, Sayed said that the region’s debt trajectory is slowly going down.

“We have really quite a remarkable downward shift in Jamaica, in your sister island Grenada, but also in your own country,” Sayed told the gathering.

She said she is grateful to the local government for working and supporting the World Bank in looking at reforms including fiscal resilience and environmental and climate change resilience.

“We are looking holistically on the topic of resilience, not just infrastructure or physical but also human capital,” noted Sayed who added that the World Bank is very different from other development organisations as they see each country they work with as important shareholders.

“In the midst of the global environment there can be the impression that larger countries get more attention but that is not the case,” Sayed stated.

She revealed that currently the World Bank works with about 19 countries in the region on about 40 projects worth over $2 billion (of investment and financing). SVG represents $100 million of the $2 billion.

The World Bank’s input in SVG comes under the Disaster Vulnerability Reduction Project and this is connected to the request made for the bank to help strategize and think through how best to regenerate Kingstown and develop Arnos Vale.

Sayed noted that the issues island nations face are common across many countries but also very unique in the context of urban regeneration. Therefore, there cannot be a one size fits all policy.

She added that usually, some areas are more volatile to exogenous issues and natural disasters and in larger cities there is migration into the cities but here, we see people migrating out of the city.

“So there are unique challenges and I hope that the support you get from us and the European Union, we will help you think about not only the redevelopment of Arnos Vale and the revitalization of Kingstown, but also on how best to use public spaces and how best to provide support whilst looking at the population density and the availability of land which is limited in the context of the areas we are talking about,” Sayed told the gathering.

“The challenge is to be able to think through and recognize the uniqueness and opportunities presented,” she said.