标签： Jamaica

KINGSTON, Jamaica — As micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) across Jamaica continue to grapple with overlapping economic and climate shocks, the head of the country’s Young Entrepreneurs Association (YEA) is pushing for targeted, accelerated expansion of technical support for these businesses, framing the move as the missing critical piece of the government’s broader national economic recovery and expansion agenda.

Cordell Williams, president of the YEA, laid out the organization’s position in a recent public statement, noting that while Jamaica has already established a solid foundational framework to support business recovery following the devastation of Hurricane Melissa, the nation must go further to close readiness gaps that leave many MSMEs locked out of existing opportunities.

Right now, businesses across the island are still picking up operations after Hurricane Melissa, all while absorbing spiking operational costs tied to the ongoing global oil crisis and facing growing frequency of climate-related disruptions that threaten stability. Williams explained that the Jamaican government has already done critical work to lay the groundwork for MSME growth, rolling out financing options, post-disaster recovery grants, and targeted opportunity creation programs for small businesses. But technical assistance, she argues, is the necessary layer that turns these foundational investments into tangible, widespread gains.

The YEA publicly recognized the government’s ongoing commitment to MSME recovery and expansion. Current initiatives include post-disaster recovery financing and direct grant support, as well as expanded access to low-interest capital through state-backed institutions like the Development Bank of Jamaica and the EXIM Bank of Jamaica. Williams described these existing programs as both impactful and essential, saying they clearly demonstrate the government’s dedication to helping MSMEs move from recovery to long-term growth.

Even with these achievements, however, Williams highlighted a persistent gap: while access to opportunities such as financing, public procurement contracts, and international export markets is expanding, a large share of MSMEs still lack the capacity to fully participate in these spaces.

“Too often, we set a table of opportunity for small businesses, but too many are unable to take a seat and benefit,” Williams explained. “This is not a failure of willingness from business owners—it is a failure of readiness, rooted in unaddressed gaps in capacity and support.”

Common barriers that MSMEs face, she noted, include the prohibitive cost of developing formal business plans, compiling required financial documentation, and preparing audited financial statements—all requirements to access existing government support and financing options. Many small business operators simply do not have the upfront capital to cover these costs, leaving them locked out even when support is officially available.

Williams stressed that technical assistance should not be viewed as an optional add-on to government policy. Instead, it should be framed as a core strategic enabler, as well as a critical tool for both risk management and change management in today’s unstable economic and climate environment.

“Technical assistance is far more than a peripheral support mechanism—it is the backbone that makes all other MSME policies work,” she said.

Looking back at past outcomes, Williams noted that targeted technical assistance has repeatedly delivered measurable results: it has boosted MSME readiness to access loans and financing, encouraged small business formalization by helping owners complete registration requirements to participate in public programs, and even supported the growth of Jamaica’s local business services sector.

Against the backdrop of repeated global economic shocks and growing climate disruptions, Williams argued that the role of technical assistance is even more critical today than in years past.

Most MSMEs operate with very limited internal capacity and stretched teams, she explained. Owners do not have the spare time or in-house expertise to tackle the work of upgrading operations, meeting compliance requirements, or restructuring for resilience on their own. Technical assistance fills this gap by giving small businesses access to external specialized expertise, allowing them to outsource critical functions, meet program requirements, and keep moving forward with growth.

Building on hard lessons learned through the COVID-19 pandemic, Williams emphasized that intentional investment in MSME resilience is now a national priority. As part of broader national goals for economic resilience and long-term sustainability, MSMEs need support to crisis-proof their operations. This includes help to re-evaluate outdated business models, diversify revenue streams and target new markets, adopt digital tools to streamline processes, and strengthen overall financial management practices—all changes that technical assistance can help facilitate.

During a high-profile G7 finance event held in Paris, the Barbados-headquartered Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) has announced a series of groundbreaking financial collaborations and policy initiatives aimed at expanding its lending capacity and accelerating climate resilience investment across the Caribbean region.

At the core of the new announcements is a landmark $200 million first-loss portfolio guarantee launched in partnership with the Government of Canada. Once all administrative and regulatory formalities are completed, this guarantee is projected to cut credit risk weighting on CDB’s balance sheet, unlocking a minimum of $400 million in additional lending capacity for the bank’s regional development projects.

CDB President Daniel Best presented these initiatives to global finance leaders gathered at the Finance in Common G7 Special Event, framing the moves as part of the institution’s ongoing work to pioneer innovative financing models among multilateral development banks (MDBs). Speaking on the event’s theme “Instruments to Lower the Cost of Capital”, Best emphasized the unique structural challenges smaller MDBs face, and outlined how targeted balance sheet adjustments can overcome these barriers to expand support for borrowing member nations.

One of the most notable existing success stories highlighted by Best is the bank’s pioneering Exposure Exchange Agreement (EEA), a $450 million transaction completed in partnership with the Central American Bank for Economic Integration. As the first agreement of its kind in the multilateral development space, the EEA has dramatically lowered concentration risk in CDB’s sovereign loan portfolio. Best reported that within just 12 months of the transaction’s completion, the bank’s concentration ratio for its top five borrowers fell from 61% to 38% — all without requiring any new capital injection from existing shareholders. For a small MDB where concentration limits often cap total lending volume, this adjustment immediately translated to expanded capacity to serve member countries across the Caribbean, he added.

Best also used the Paris platform to showcase CDB’s collaborative leadership in tackling the region’s most pressing dual challenge: soaring national debt levels paired with extreme climate vulnerability. The bank is currently developing a multi-guarantor debt-for-resilience swap initiative alongside four major regional and global development institutions: the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, and the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF).

By combining guarantee support from partner MDBs and private sector investors, Best explained, the initiative will create much-needed fiscal space for Caribbean nations to invest in proactive climate resilience infrastructure before extreme weather events strike — all without increasing countries’ net debt levels. The core objectives of the framework are to cut borrowing costs for participating nations, extend debt maturities, and enable long-term, forward-looking climate investment that protects vulnerable communities.

To further strengthen its long-term financial stability and lending capacity, CDB is also developing a new innovative loss-absorbing tool: the Contingent Capital Facility (CCF), which is structured to qualify as regulatory tier two capital for the bank. Under this mechanism, highly credit-rated CDB shareholders will commit pre-agreed capital that will only be called upon if predefined economic or financial stress scenarios occur. The bank notes that this structure ensures capital support is contractually available exactly when systemic stress hits, strengthening CDB’s own financial resilience while protecting its investment-grade credit rating.