Business View Caribbean | March 2020

11 BUSINESS VIEW CARIBBEAN MARCH 2020 S o serious are the issues facing the region that its leaders have decided to restructure the CARICOM Development Fund (CDF) to enable it to raise additional monies from individuals, companies, institutions, regional countries, and extra regional countries. CARICOM Chairman, Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley, said the issue of the CDF and its management was one that had “bedeviled the Community for some time”, noting that it CARICOM DEVELOPMENT FUND TO BE RESTRUCTURED was created as a way to assist disadvantaged countries, sectors, and regions. “Member states have committed to capitalizing this Fund, but this will never be enough to do what needs to be done, particularly with all of the challenges that the region faces at this point in time. I outlined a number of them and we keep seeing new challenges as we did with the COVID-19, and to that extent, therefore, we feel strongly that we need to revisit the structure of OPENING L INES