An­tho­ny Wil­son

In an ap­par­ent shift of em­pha­sis, the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF) is ad­vo­cat­ing that eco­nom­ic growth be placed at the cen­tre of the re­cov­ery of Caribbean is­lands, many of which have been bat­tered by the im­pact of the glob­al fi­nan­cial cri­sis.

In pre­sent­ing the lun­cheon fea­ture ad­dress on the sec­ond day of a two-day fo­rum in The Ba­hamas, IMF deputy man­ag­ing di­rec­tor Ne­mat Shafik said giv­en the cen­tral­i­ty of growth to sus­tain­abil­i­ty, en­sur­ing that pro­gramme de­sign meets small states' needs must trans­late in­to more fo­cus on growth in the in­sti­tu­tion's pro­grammes.

"Hence, we pro­pose to ask all IMF mis­sion chiefs to small states with Fund-sup­port­ed pro­grammes to in­clude an ex­plic­it growth agen­da. Ob­vi­ous­ly, the con­tent of such a sec­tion will de­pend on each gov­ern­ment's pref­er­ences and ca­pac­i­ty, and we do not en­vis­age im­pos­ing any new Fund con­di­tion­al­i­ty," Shafik said.

The change of fo­cus by the IMF was out­lined at a high-lev­el fo­rum on Build­ing Growth in­to the Caribbean Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Agen­da which was held last week Thurs­day and Fri­day in Nas­sau, The Ba­hamas. The fo­rum was host­ed by the IMF and the Gov­ern­ment of The Ba­hamas, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank (CDB), the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB), and the World Bank.