The Caribbean faces a stark choice: Transform how it finances resilience and development, or remain trapped in a cycle of debt, constrained growth, and escalating climate shocks.

It may be argued that this pointed message coming from the head of the regional Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) bears nothing new to those who have been taking notice all along. But what it does is to deliver it in the most succinct and direct way possible for those who might have been missing the point.

Mr Daniel Best, the CDB’s president, also delivered that message to arguably the most critical section of the Caribbean audience at a recent forum of multilateral partners, private investors, and government officials, whom he gently prodded to move beyond incremental responses to the region’s mounting vulnerabilities.

With the Caribbean’s gross financing needs projected at US$65.2 billion over the next decade, and less than 10 per cent of the US$14 billion needed annually for climate readiness currently being mobilised, it would be sheer malpractice had he not warned the region that it can no longer afford fragmented or short-term approaches to development finance.

The need to unlock greater private sector participation to help break the region’s long-standing development constraints has been often mentioned in fora of this nature. However, it is getting clearer every day that governments cannot rely solely on overburdened taxpayers to fund the innovative financing solutions and multilateral collaboration needed.

“Across our region, the private sector is not simply a beneficiary of development, it is a primary driver of growth, employment, and productivity,” Mr Best stressed. “If we are serious about building resilient economies, then the private sector must be enabled, incentivised, and financed to lead that transformation.”

The cycle of structural pressures bearing down on Caribbean economies — such as high debt burdens, limited fiscal space, and external shocks from climate disasters, plus global economic volatility, compounded by elevated borrowing costs — has been difficult and stubborn. We know this.

In just the past eight years, the Caribbean has been struck by five Category 5 hurricanes, not to mention other natural disasters — a sobering reminder that climate risk is not a future threat, but a present reality, as we in Jamaica can attest, fresh from our encounter with Hurricane Melissa.

We note that one of the key mechanisms spotlighted at the forum was the Multi-Guarantor Debt-for-Resilience Swap. As Mr Best explained, it brings together multiple guarantors to reduce risk, lower borrowing costs, and create meaningful fiscal space that governments can redirect toward things like health care, climate adaptation, disaster preparedness, and other pressing priorities.

No doubt, the success of such instruments will depend on coordinated action among multilateral development banks, governments, private insurers, commercial banks, and investors. Commendably, the CDB has been a leader in this regard, in expanding its work with the private sector through blended finance, guarantees, co-financing partnerships, and entrepreneurship support aimed at strengthening the region’s investment climate.

Indeed, given the uncertainty and volatility of the global environment, the Caribbean as a whole had better act. Because no one is coming to rescue us.