Skerrit urges IMF to provide grant and concessional financing for SIDS

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(DNO) – Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit has called on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to put measures in place to determine grant and concessional financing to Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

He was speaking at the IMF annual meeting held virtually on Tuesday.

“We need the international community to throw their collective weight and resources behind our efforts by adopting the vulnerability index as the measure for determining grant and concessional financing to SIDS,” he said. “And this index I must add should be designed with the involvement of our best expertise and should not be a unilateral imposition…”

The prime minister also urged the IMF to provide additional grant financing to support Covid-19 management, vaccines, social programmes as well as support to micro, small and medium size firms.

He also identified additional concessional financing for budget support and relaxing fiscal roles “in an appropriate, limited and temporary way to get us through this period of crisis,” as other forms of assistance which can be provided by the IMF.

Skerrit said the creation of a growth and resilience fund that can provide easy access to grant financing for resilience projects, that will pay for itself by reducing vulnerability, loss and damage, more flexible obligations for debt contracted to respond to shocks and an extension, is also important.

The theme for the meeting was: “Navigating the Crisis towards Thriving Caribbean Economies – Building Resilience to Climate Change.”

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