CARICOM members urged to pay up to help hurricane-hit islands

Delinquent CARICOM member countries must pay up outstanding contributions to the CARICOM Development Fund (CDF) to facilitate rebuilding in countries devastated by recent hurricanes.

CARICOM Chairman Keith Mitchell, who is also prime minister of Grenada, implored all member countries – “especially the more developed countries” – to honour their financial obligations to the CDF for the second funding cycle and beyond.

“Failure to do so in a timely manner would severely hamper the ability to deliver on its mandate,” Mitchell warned in his address to the Sixth Meeting of Contributors and Development Partners of the CDF in Barbados.

He also said the urgent need to complete the replenishment of the fund in this current period was important to wider efforts to mobilise external financing for the development and reconstruction of the region.