The De­vel­op­ment Bank of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (CAF) has ap­proved US$250 mil­lion in fi­nanc­ing to sup­port two crit­i­cal re­silience and sus­tain­abil­i­ty ini­tia­tives in Trinidad and To­ba­go—re­silient road in­fra­struc­ture and re­silient ed­u­ca­tion­al in­fra­struc­ture.

In a news re­lease, CAF was said that both pro­grammes are fo­cused on sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment and build­ing re­silience to the ef­fects of cli­mate change.

CAF’s ex­ec­u­tive pres­i­dent, Ser­gio Díaz-Grana­dos, said, “CAF has a long­stand­ing, fruit­ful part­ner­ship with Trinidad and To­ba­go and we stand ready to sup­port the na­tion’s thrust to­wards build­ing re­silience, which are key el­e­ments of these pro­grammes. This new in­vest­ment of US$250 mil­lion will en­hance cli­mate re­silient in­fra­struc­ture and strength­en the teach­ing of Span­ish as a first for­eign lan­guage. We are con­fi­dent this will lay the foun­da­tion for a more ro­bust ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem that pre­pares stu­dents to be glob­al cit­i­zens."

In the re­lease, CAF ex­plained, "Sec­tor Wide Ap­proach Pro­gramme (SWAP) for Re­silient Road In­fra­struc­ture—with an al­lo­ca­tion of US$150 mil­lion—will strength­en the re­silience of the coun­try’s road net­work against the im­pacts of cli­mate change, such as coastal ero­sion, flood­ing, and more in­tense rain­fall pat­terns"

The re­lease con­tin­ued,"The pro­gramme is aligned with T&T’s Na­tion­al Adap­ta­tion Plan and Vi­sion 2030 Strat­e­gy. The op­er­a­tion is ex­pect­ed to mit­i­gate eco­nom­ic dis­rup­tions caused by ex­treme weath­er events and re­duce costs linked to in­fra­struc­ture dam­age."

This pro­gramme, CAF said, will be ex­e­cut­ed by the Min­istry of Fi­nance, with sup­port from the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port (MOWT).

CAF ex­plained that US$100 mil­lion has been ap­proved for Re­silient School In­fra­struc­ture and Im­prove­ment of Span­ish as a For­eign Lan­guage in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

"These will en­hance ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion by build­ing and re­ha­bil­i­tat­ing ear­ly child­hood and care cen­tres as well as pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary school in­fra­struc­ture. It will al­so en­sure that the schools iden­ti­fied are adapt­ed to im­prove learn­ing and out­fit­ted with the com­plete equip­ment re­quired for their prop­er func­tion­ing." CAF said.

"The school re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion com­po­nent will fo­cus on safe­ty, sus­tain­abil­i­ty and gen­der in­clu­sion and aligns with Unit­ed Na­tions Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment Goals (SDGs). The pro­mo­tion of Span­ish lan­guage at the pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary lev­els is al­so a key el­e­ment of this ini­tia­tive that would in­crease com­mer­cial and cul­tur­al ties with the rest of Latin Amer­i­ca," the de­vel­op­ment bank added.