Today, the Caribbean Development Bank and CCRIF SPC (formerly the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility) launched the Integrated Sovereign Risk Management in the Caribbean Project.  This project seeks to enable all Caribbean countries to take a more proactive approach towards country risk management, moving beyond planning for natural disaster risks such as climate change and events like hurricanes and earthquakes and recognizing the intrinsic linkages between disaster risk and other types of risks such as economic, technological and financial and the impacts of these on socioeconomic development.

 At the ceremony, which was held on the margins of the 2017 CDB Board of Governors Meeting, CDB President, Dr. William Warren Smith indicated that this project “will help Caribbean governments address their increased vulnerabilities caused by socioeconomic factors as well as the technological and economic interconnectedness of communities across regions and throughout the world.”

 Dr. Smith noted that CDB has strengthened its risk management infrastructure over the past few years by adopting an integrated enterprise risk management framework. The Bank will use this experience to support a holistic approach to risk management in Caribbean states. The proposed benefits of this project include maintaining country ratings; sharing risk intelligence and mitigation strategies across the region; and encouraging the adoption of a proactive forward-looking risk approach to country management in a way that would improve economic performance.

CCRIF CEO, Mr. Isaac Anthony stated that the project also “is intended to enable the countries in the region to become more resilient, by enhancing the capacity of governments to take a portfolio view on risks and include all risk categories – technical, economic, natural and social risks – and their interdependence in a geographic context.” He further indicated that a key part of this new integrated risk management framework would be to establish country risk officers or coordinators within countries – that is senior level positions that will be responsible for managing the overall risk landscape, taking a holistic approach to risks before events occur and ensuring that countries adopt a more proactive, precautionary approach to anticipating future challenges.

 CDB Chief Risk Officer, Mr. Malcolm Buamah noted that the initiative provides a formal process that enables the establishment of an effective country management platform that aims to deliver sustained economic growth and performance over the medium to long term. It will also provide assurance to stakeholders and contribute to attracting competitive international financing and donor support. “CDB’s success in enterprise risk management, complemented by CCRIF’s success in disaster risk management, can be leveraged and transferred to the country platform to deliver significant economic and developmental benefits across the Caribbean.”

A number of key activities will be implemented over the next few months to advance the implementation of this initiative – culminating in a regional conference on sovereign risk management for policy makers, which will provide an opportunity for these stakeholders to participate in the development of the standardized integrated risk management framework.