标签： Dominica

Against a backdrop of rising geopolitical friction, economic volatility, accelerating climate change and rapidly evolving global alliances, the Caribbean region faces a growing web of interconnected threats. But according to leading economists at the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), the most critical barrier to long-term stability is not new global shocks — it is decades-old structural flaws that have left the bloc uniquely sensitive to outside disruptions.

This finding served as the core takeaway from a special policy session titled “Shockwaves: How Global Crises Are Hitting the Caribbean,” held as part of CDB’s EDGE X: Analytics Unlocked series during the Bank’s 56th Annual Meeting in Nassau, The Bahamas. The event brought together lead researchers Dr. Oronde Small and Xavier Ajani Malcolm to unpack the cascading impacts of overlapping global crises on Caribbean economies and outline actionable policy strategies to boost regional resilience.

During the presentation, Malcolm emphasized that Caribbean nations are not confronting one isolated crisis, but a perfect storm of simultaneous challenges originating both at home and abroad. On the external front, the region grapples with climate-fueled natural disasters, protectionist “America-first” trade frameworks, growing fragmentation in global multilateral institutions, the ongoing conflict in Iran, heightened U.S. military engagement in the broader Caribbean and Venezuelan region, and the long-running humanitarian crisis in Cuba.

These external pressures are amplified by deep-seated domestic weaknesses that have persisted for generations, CDB’s official press release confirms. Key structural vulnerabilities include limited economic diversification across most Caribbean states, extreme reliance on just a handful of export markets, heavy dependence on imported essential goods, chronically low productivity levels, and a large, unregulated informal economic sector that undermines government revenue and policy stability.

Trade policy uncertainty emerged as another top risk highlighted during the session. Recent shifts in global trade rules, particularly the expansion of U.S. tariffs and persistent ambiguity around future tariff adjustments, threaten to dampen cross-border investment, raise financing costs for regional governments and businesses, and slow intra-regional trade. Economists stressed that tourism-reliant economies, which form the backbone of most Caribbean national incomes, face the greatest exposure to these trade disruptions.

The region’s heavy dependence on imported food and fossil fuels creates additional volatility, leaving national budgets and consumer prices hostage to unpredictable swings in global commodity markets. This dependency makes it far more difficult for central banks and governments to control inflation and maintain steady economic growth, CDB researchers noted.

Another worrying trend raised at the meeting is the steady decline in international development assistance. Global net official development assistance dropped by more than 8% in 2024, and multiple Caribbean nations saw deep cuts to U.S. development financing in 2025. This pullback comes at a critical moment, when Caribbean countries need massive capital investment for infrastructure upgrades, development projects and climate adaptation measures. Reduced aid will likely limit access to low-interest concessional financing, putting these critical goals out of reach for many nations.

Climate change remains the single most pressing long-term threat to the region, Malcolm confirmed. Caribbean small island developing states already experience far higher levels of damage from climate-fueled natural hazards than most other small states globally. Rising sea levels, increasing average temperatures, more intense and frequent hurricanes, and regular climate-related disruptions continue to erode progress on economic growth and sustainable development.

Malcolm also pointed out that climate shocks do not need to hit the Caribbean directly to impact regional economies. Climate disasters hitting major trading partners and key source markets for tourism can cut visitor arrivals, depress consumer spending in source countries and reduce foreign direct investment, creating indirect but severe economic headwinds for the region.

Dr. Small added that recent rapid shifts in global geopolitics have added a new layer of uncertainty for a region that has always been heavily dependent on global economic and political conditions.

“It’s becoming increasingly clear that these are not episodic events. They are structural features of the global space and have potentially significant implications for [the Bank’s] Borrowing Member Countries,” he told session attendees.

Despite the long list of daunting challenges, both researchers stressed that the Caribbean has clear, actionable pathways to build greater resilience. The core policy recommendations from CDB include expanding economic diversification to broaden both export products and trading partners, accelerating the transition from imported fossil fuels to domestic renewable energy, strengthening national food security, boosting productivity through targeted investment in innovation, upgrading climate adaptation and disaster preparedness infrastructure, improving public financial management to reduce fiscal vulnerability, and deepening cross-border regional cooperation to share resources and reduce individual country risk.

In their closing remarks, the economists concluded that Caribbean countries with strong, accountable public institutions — particularly robust, transparent fiscal frameworks — will be far better positioned to weather current and future external shocks. Building long-term resilience will require proactive, forward-thinking policy choices and sustained collaborative action across the region, they emphasized, to help Caribbean economies navigate an increasingly uncertain global landscape.

On a Wednesday evening, Venezuela was struck by an extremely rare and devastating seismic event that has quickly escalated into one of the worst humanitarian crises the South American nation has faced in decades. Two massive earthquakes, registering magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5 respectively, hit just 39 seconds apart near the coastal town of Morón, located roughly 170 kilometers west of the capital Caracas. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has classified the event as an unusual seismic doublet, marking the 7.5-magnitude tremor as the most powerful earthquake to hit Venezuela since 1900. Compounding the destruction, both quakes originated at a shallow depth of just 13 kilometers, which greatly amplified shaking and structural damage across a wide swathe of the country.

The capital Caracas bore the brunt of the destruction, with dozens of buildings reduced to rubble, including multiple high-rise residential towers in the heavily populated Baruta and Chacao districts. Critical transportation infrastructure was knocked offline: Simón Bolívar International Airport, the country’s main international gateway, was forced to completely suspend operations after suffering what officials described as severe structural damage. All metro and intercity rail services were also immediately halted, and viral social media footage captured terrified passengers running for cover as falling debris crashed through terminal walkways.

In the wake of the initial quakes, authorities recorded at least 30 aftershocks overnight, leaving communities and first responders on edge over the risk of additional building collapses. As of the latest updates, the confirmed death toll stands at 164, with nearly 1,000 people injured. Acting President Delcy Rodríguez has warned that the casualty count is expected to rise sharply as rescue teams work to reach cut-off and devastated areas, with multiple people still reported trapped under collapsed structures in Altamira district, a neighborhood that hosts multiple foreign embassies.

Local hospitals across Caracas are already overwhelmed by the influx of injured patients, prompting officials to convert unused school buildings into emergency shelters to house thousands of displaced residents. In a televised address to the nation, Rodríguez extended heartfelt condolences to families who lost loved ones, urging all citizens to evacuate any structurally damaged buildings and remain calm amid ongoing response efforts. Venezuela’s Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello further cautioned that lingering aftershocks could continue to weaken already compromised structures, raising the risk of additional collapses in the coming days.

Tremors from the quakes were felt as far away as Brazil’s Amazon basin, and regional emergency management officials issued temporary tsunami warnings for Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands as a precaution. In the hours following the disaster, offers of urgent humanitarian assistance began pouring in from across the globe. The United States announced it would deploy specialized search and rescue teams, ship critical medical supplies, and provide full logistical support for relief operations. Former U.S. President Donald Trump stated that Washington was “ready, willing and able to help,” while then-Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed the deployment of American relief personnel. Spain has committed 54 specialized army rescuers to the effort, and France is preparing to deploy 85 emergency response workers. Pope Francis pledged 100,000 euros in immediate aid, and United Nations officials have called on Venezuelan authorities to maintain open communication channels, emphasizing that timely public access to information is a “life-and-death matter” during ongoing rescue operations.

With thousands of residents displaced, key national infrastructure destroyed, and rescue operations still in their early stages, Venezuela now confronts one of the gravest humanitarian challenges it has faced in modern history.

Against a backdrop of growing climate vulnerability and urgent demand for long-term economic stability, senior regional officials, private sector leaders, and development partners have issued a unified call for the Caribbean to accelerate its shift to renewable energy, warning that scattered, uncoordinated national efforts will leave the region unable to meet its energy security, climate resilience, and economic growth targets.

The collective appeal was delivered during the seminar titled *Energy Transition: The Key to a More Resilient Region*, a key side event held alongside the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB)’s 56th Annual Board of Governors Meeting. The gathering brought together a cross-selection of stakeholders from across the Caribbean and global development institutions to map out a collaborative path forward for the region’s energy transformation.

Per an official CDB press release following the event, attendees reached a consensus that the Caribbean must adopt a coordinated, inclusive regional strategy to unlock its vast untapped renewable energy potential, and deliver a power grid that is cleaner, more affordable, and consistently reliable for all communities. Over the next 12 to 24 months, participants identified three core priorities: combining small-scale national renewable energy projects into larger regional investment portfolios to appeal to major investors; expanding credit guarantees and blended financing mechanisms to draw in much-needed private sector capital; and upgrading electricity infrastructure to build climate-resilient grids that can accommodate growing shares of variable renewable energy generation.

Discussion also emphasized four additional foundational requirements for success: deeper regional integration across energy systems, strengthened technical capacity within government bodies, regulatory agencies and local utility providers, increased youth participation in energy planning and policy design, and cross-sector partnerships between public and private actors. All of these priorities align closely with CDB’s newly launched 2026-2035 strategic framework, *Transforming the Caribbean for Resilience*, which places energy transition at the core of the bank’s 10-year work plan for its borrowing member countries.

L. O’Reilly Lewis, CDB’s Director of Projects, outlined the far-reaching economic benefits that a successful energy transition would deliver for the region. “If we get the energy transition right, we can preserve foreign exchange, stabilise energy costs, create green jobs, and give our businesses room to breathe and grow,” Lewis explained. “CDB’s 10-year strategy commits us to supporting this transition: one that is inclusive, affordable, and resilient.”

A core point of consensus among attendees was that while accessible climate financing exists globally, the region lacks the structured investment frameworks needed to mobilize that capital at scale. Timothy Antoine, Governor of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB), noted that the Caribbean’s primary barrier is not a lack of available liquidity, but a shortage of investment-ready projects that meet global investor standards. “This is not a liquidity issue. It is an issue of investability, and that is where we must focus our attention,” Antoine said. He added that blended financing models, which combine capital from multilateral development banks and commercial financial institutions, are critical to de-risking projects and attracting large-scale investment. “We must design an investment architecture that leverages not only multilateral development banks but also commercial banks,” he noted.

Regional collaboration was repeatedly highlighted as a non-negotiable component of building long-term energy resilience. Kristin Lang, Green Climate Fund Director for the Latin America and Caribbean region, urged Caribbean nations to move beyond isolated national energy planning and embrace integrated regional systems. “You do need to think about regional energy hubs, cross-border systems, shared planning, coordinated investment, and align system design in the region,” Lang said. “Having isolated systems is not going to create resilience, it’s going to make you more vulnerable to shocks.”

Toni Pratt, CEO of Bahamas Power and Light Company Limited, shared on-the-ground evidence of the benefits of public-private collaboration, pointing to successful renewable energy expansion across the Bahamas’ Family Islands through cross-sector partnerships. “We found that inviting partnerships for solar implementation, battery energy storage, and microgrids throughout the Family Islands is one of the ways that we don’t have to bear that upfront cost, but we can reduce overall cost to our consumers by reducing our reliance on fossil fuels, which is primarily the highest cost that our consumers bear at this time,” Pratt explained.

Dr. Vince Henderson, Dominica’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, International Business, Trade and Energy, emphasized the foundational role of energy security in enabling all other forms of modern development, drawing on his country’s experience developing a 10-megawatt geothermal energy project. “Energy must be part of integrated development plans. It is fundamental to development in the 21st century,” Henderson said. “People are excited about AI and digital transformation, but without reliable power, none of that is possible. If power systems fail, we face serious consequences.”

Youth engagement also emerged as a central theme of the seminar. Co-moderator Sorayadebie Jhagroe, a Suriname-based climate advocate and member of CDB’s Future Leaders Network, stressed that young people must be active decision-makers, not just passive beneficiaries of the energy transition. “The future is now and we as youth are not merely beneficiaries of the energy transition, but we are an active part of shaping that,” Jhagroe said.

Dr. Henderson echoed that call, noting that long-lived energy infrastructure investments must be planned with the needs of future generations front of mind. “The key point is that investments must stand the test of time. They must include young people, not as an afterthought but as a central focus. These investments are for the next 25 to 50 years, and young people will drive that future,” he said.

Closing the seminar, attendees reached broad agreement that the Caribbean’s shift to renewable energy will require four core pillars to succeed: stronger cross-border regional cooperation, innovative de-risked financing solutions, climate-resilient energy infrastructure, and meaningful multi-stakeholder partnerships that bring together governments, global development institutions, private businesses, and local communities. Participants reaffirmed that achieving universal energy security through renewable transition is not only critical to building the region’s climate resilience, but also to unlocking long-term inclusive economic growth and sustainable development across the Caribbean.

On June 24, 2026, northern Venezuela was hit by an unprecedented seismic disaster: two massive earthquakes, registering magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5, struck the region within seconds of one another, leaving a trail of death and widespread destruction across the country’s northern corridor. As of the latest official updates from acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez, the disaster has claimed at least 164 lives and left 971 people injured, with rescue teams still racing against time to pull survivors from the rubble of collapsed buildings, prompting warnings that the final death toll may climb as search operations progress.

According to U.S. public media outlet NPR, the second 7.5-magnitude tremor is the most powerful earthquake to hit Venezuela since 1900, marking a historic seismic event for the South American nation. The worst damage has been concentrated in areas close to the capital Caracas and the coastal state of La Guaira, where dozens of structures crumbled during the quakes. Emergency response teams have worked nonstop around the clock since the disaster struck, combing through destroyed neighborhoods and damaged infrastructure to locate missing people and deliver life-saving aid to affected communities.

In the wake of the tragedy, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the regional integration bloc representing Caribbean nations, has issued an official statement extending its deepest condolences to the Venezuelan people and affirming regional solidarity amid the crisis. “The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) expresses deep condolences over the tragic loss of life, the growing number of injuries, and the extensive damage to infrastructure and homes as a result of the devastating earthquakes that struck Venezuela on Wednesday, 24 June 2026,” the statement reads.

Recognizing the profound grief that has gripped the country following the disaster, CARICOM reaffirmed its commitment to standing with Venezuela during this period of trial. “We stand in solidarity with the people of Venezuela during this time of immense grief and offer prayers for a swift recovery to the injured and displaced,” the bloc said.

The regional body also paid tribute to the tireless work of those on the front lines of the response effort, commending first responders, emergency personnel and civilian volunteers who have been working under harsh, dangerous conditions to execute rescue missions and deliver critical support to impacted populations.

As Venezuela prepares to enter the long, difficult process of rebuilding shattered communities and infrastructure, CARICOM closed its statement by expressing confidence in the Venezuelan people’s ability to recover, wishing them strength and resilience through the coming months of recovery and reconstruction.