BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) — The board of governors of the Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) Wednesday began their 51st annual meeting overshadowed by the impact of climate change and the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on the socio-economic development of the region.

CDB President, Dr Gene Leon, in his inaugural address to the governors, said that since the first case of the COVID-19 pandemic was registered in the region on March 10, 2020, it has wreaked havoc in Caribbean societies and economies.

“First as a health crisis, the pandemic has placed a heavy burden on health systems likely not designed for this kind of impact. From an economic perspective it led to a collapse of economic activity with unprecedented negative growth rates, set back the steady gains in poverty alleviation and inequality,” the St Lucian-born economist said.

He said the pandemic can also be blamed for putting in slow motion, the education of young people and underline the pernicious vulnerability of export concentration.

“Our tourism concentrated economies have been severely hit as did counterparts worldwide and many of our social protection systems hang precariously in the balance.”

Leon said while the pandemic has spared no one, “there is the inescapable and untenable reality that not everyone has felt its socio-economic consequences in the same way”.

He said women, for example are fearing worse, generally earning and saving less tending to occupy more less secure jobs and more likely to live in poverty than men.

“We have seen the prevalence of unpaid care work increase significantly during the pandemic as schools have closed and families are spending more retime at home. This is having a greater impact on women who typically take on a greater burden of house tasks related to care than men.”

Leon also said deeper economic and social stress, coupled with movement restrictions and social isolation have also led to an “exponential rise” in gender based violence and quite likely sowing the seeds for deep emotional trauma “the effects of which may still be unfolding”.

‘To be honest we had our fair share of structural impediment to sustainable growth before COVID-19,” Leon said, adding that while this unwelcome visitor, “COVID-9 is also the wake up call to action.”

“It is the alarming clock heralding the time has come to shake away the feeling of slumber,” he said, noting that when combined with the additional and multi-dimensional vulnerability that characterises the countries of the region “we can only ask with some trepidation how will we deliver on the promise of inclusive and sustainable development that is embodied in our commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”.

But he noted that the economic growth which has been receding in the last 50 years slowed to an average of 0.4 per cent during the 10 years to 2019.

He said that the impact of COVID especially in the tourism dependent economies amounted to double digit declines in growth.

He said also poverty rates had also been severely affected “moving the region further away from the SDG goal”.

“Access to dedication took a blow also during the pandemic with the digital divide retarding access and raising concerns about the longer term implication for human capital accumulation. We can pony imagine the cumulative devastation that could ensue from a severe hurricane season and this is yet to come.”

Leon said what this amounts to and evident by less onerous period of the Caribbean’s history “is that our ability to recover to pre catastrophe levels is wake”.

“It takes many years, it is very costly and we are prone to repeated events. The shocking reality is that after all of the effort and financing we would not, underline, not, have grown relative to our pre catastrophe state.”

Leon said that he intends to take stock of where “we are as a region” as well as elaborating on the role of innovation in building resilience and advancing standards of living of Caribbean people and to outline the role of the bank to facilitating this development.

Leon said that since committing in 2015 to the UN’s SDGs, only seven of the CDB’s 19 borrowing members (BMCs) have managed to submit voluntary national reviews regarding the implementation of those initiatives to be achieved by 2030.

“Notwithstanding, BMCs in the main have sought to align and anchor their respective national development plans and polices to the SDG framework with many establishing national bodies to oversee SDG mainstreaming and localisation.”

But he noted that most of these countries have however singled out the enduring challenges of data paucity and insufficient statistical capacity to monitor, report, and formula evidence based policies which directly respond to the SDGs.

“Equally concerns regarding in adequate funding and the ever present risk of natural hazards to SDGs implementation is a recurring theme throughout the BMC’s national reviews, which in effect derails all efforts towards implementing the SDGs.”

He said so while credible data on the region’s progress is absent “it is equally clear that actions to meet the goals are not advancing at the speed and scale required”.

“So our statistics at best I would say disheartening,” he said, making a case for the bank to serve as a data hub for the region.

“We need to measure better, to target better. That includes building data architectures and data bases   to better inform our evidence based decision making,” Leon said.