BRIDGETOWN, Barbados — The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) has pledged to play a more vital role in helping this region to better respond to the financial and economic challenges it is struggling to overcome.

This assurance came yesterday from CDB President Dr Compton Bourne in an address to a media conference that coincides with the observance of the 40th anniversary of the region’s premier banking institution.

Consistent with good co-operation of its donor partners and relations with the international financial institutions, the CDB has committed itself to two major challenges as it prepares to more effectively help in stimulating the region’s economic development.

These would be, as explained by Bourne, the raising of new capital resources and helping to identify and prioritise development areas within the context of its advocacy role and leadership capabilities.

Last year, when its borrowing member countries across this region continued to cope with socio-economic consequences resulting from the global economic crisis, the CDB provided approximately US$209 million in loans and grants.

Of that total, US$111 million was disbursed to the less developed countries, mainly the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) and also Haiti; US$83 million to the more developed countries and the remaining US$14 million to a variety of regional entities.

In sketching the regional development picture during 2009, the CDB said that economic output contracted in most regional economies last year, with four exceptions — Belize, Guyana, Haiti (now devastated by the January 12 earthquake), and Montserrat.

The region’s vital tourism sector was a major victim in 2009 of the international economic crisis, with the manufacturing sector, mining and quarrying industries also suffering negatively.

But amid the gloom, the “bright spots” that surfaced to offer hope for a resurgence in 2010 were the agriculture sector, with particularly impressive showings in Guyana and countries of the OECS.

In pointing to prospects for 2010, the CDB explained that “this is largely predicated on the timing, pace and magnitude of the incipient global recovery, with recovery in the region expected to lag behind that of the major world economies by a few quarters”.

However, in the bank’s estimation, economic growth is expected to return during 2010 “to some of the economies that contracted last year”, but the general recovery of regional economies “is not likely to take hold before 2011”.

The bank, however, did not identify the economies which it estimated would return to growth.