CARICOM is to host a donors’ conference to raise funds to help the restoration of member states affected by September’s hurricanes.
Secretary-General Irwin LaRocque said he had been mandated by the CARICOM Heads of Government to convene the conference.
He said the event would be held at the end of November in New York. The Secretariat is collaborating with the United Nations Development Fund on the conference.
LaRocque has said that it is impossible for the economies of the devastated countries to generate enough economic activities to reconstruct by themselves.
Barbuda and Dominica have been the hardest hit by Category 5 hurricanes Irma and Maria. Tourism and agriculture, the major economic earners, were both wiped out.
The cost of Maria’s damage on Dominica has been estimated as U.S. $1 billion while no final figure has been attached to the losses on Barbuda. However, the Antigua and Barbuda government has said that rebuilding the island’s public infrastructure would cost upwards of U.S. $200 million.
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