Jagdeo leads Caribbean delegation in discussion with World Bank President

President Bharrat Jagdeo, who is also currently Chairman of CARICOM, yesterday led a Caribbean delegation in a meeting with the President of the World Bank Robert Zoellick.

Addressing the meeting on behalf of the Caribbean Region, President Jagdeo advocated a new policy model to govern the engagement between the international financial institutions and the small vulnerable states of the Caribbean, recognising the long known peculiar development challenges faced by these countries. Against that background, he made the case for urgent additional flows of development assistance to be mobilised and disbursed to countries in the Region.

He also argued for special attention to be paid to relieving and restructuring the debt of the highly indebted vulnerable middle income countries of the region. In addition, he discussed with the World Bank President the climate change concerns of the Region.

The Caribbean delegation included the Prime Ministers of the Bahamas, Barbados, and St. Lucia. A number of senior officials of the Bank were also in attendance.

Yesterday’s meeting with President Zoellick followed meetings that President Jagdeo held earlier in the week with several leading figures in the international development community, including the President of the Inter-American Development Bank and the Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund.

At all of these meetings, President Jagdeo has been advocating the case for additional support to be provided for the development efforts of the Caribbean.