In a historic milestone for the small Central American nation, Belize has assumed the presidency of the Council of Ministers of Finance or Treasury of Central America, Panama and the Dominican Republic (COSEFIN) — marking the first time the country has held the top leadership role in the regional body since its founding. The handover ceremony took place during the council’s 58th ordinary session held in Guatemala City, where the Dominican Republic’s Ministry of Finance and Economy officially transferred the presidential mandate to Belize’s Ministry of Economic Transformation.
COSEFIN serves as a critical coordinating platform that brings together finance ministers and senior economic officials from across the member states. Its core mandates span aligning regional policies on public finance governance, cross-border tax administration, disaster risk financing, and collective economic resilience. One of the council’s most impactful contributions to regional stability has been its support for establishing the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility, a groundbreaking financial mechanism that delivers rapid emergency payouts to member governments in the aftermath of major hurricanes and other natural disasters. These funds often reach affected countries long before traditional international aid or development loans are disbursed, filling a critical gap in early emergency response.
The importance of COSEFIN’s work has grown sharply in recent years, as climate change drives an increase in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, pushing disaster-related economic losses to record highs. Regional data underscores the scale of the challenge: since 1980, nine nations across the COSEFIN membership have suffered single-disaster losses that exceeded half of their total annual gross domestic product. Meanwhile, annual average infrastructure damage across Central America alone is estimated at $4 billion, a constant drain on public budgets that slows long-term development.
Speaking after the handover, Belize’s Minister of Economic Transformation Dr. Osmond Martinez framed the appointment as a defining moment for the country. Rejecting the idea that regional leadership is reserved for larger economies, Martinez emphasized that “Belize understands that leadership is not measured by the size of an economy but by the ability to listen, build consensus, and unite efforts around a shared purpose.”
Over the coming six months of its presidency, Belize will steer high-priority regional discussions across four core areas: strengthening fiscal resilience in the wake of economic and climate shocks, improving standards of public financial management, modernizing cross-border tax administration systems, and expanding coordinated disaster preparedness across member states. The appointment puts one of the region’s smallest national economies at the very center of critical decision-making that will shape climate and economic resilience for more than 75 million people across Central America and the Caribbean.