An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Econ­o­mist and In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dr Mar­lene Attzs said the dam­age suf­fered by Ja­maica as a re­sult of the pas­sage of Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa serves as a stark re­minder of the grow­ing risks Caribbean economies face and the ur­gent need for greater na­tion­al and re­gion­al re­silience.

Attzs said the hur­ri­cane high­lights how ex­ter­nal shocks, whether en­vi­ron­men­tal or eco­nom­ic, can quick­ly dis­rupt liveli­hoods, set back de­vel­op­ment goals, in­fra­struc­ture and fis­cal sta­bil­i­ty across the re­gion.

“What is hap­pen­ing in Ja­maica now, with the dam­age caused Hur­ri­cane Melis­sa makes the point that there are so many risks fac­ing us in the re­gion that we al­ways have to be pre­pared,” she said.

“We are in an era of poly­cri­sis,” Attzs said, not­ing that T&T, like its neigh­bours, is not im­mune to these vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties and must use the lessons un­fold­ing in Ja­maica to strength­en its own dis­as­ter readi­ness and eco­nom­ic plan­ning.

She in­di­cat­ed that these re­gion­al events re­in­force the im­por­tance of long-term fis­cal strate­gies such as those out­lined in Bud­get 2026. She de­scribed the bud­get as the gov­ern­ment’s first ma­jor at­tempt to build na­tion­al re­silience fi­nan­cial­ly, so­cial­ly, and struc­tural­ly against grow­ing un­cer­tain­ty.

“Bud­get 2026 is this gov­ern­ment’s re­sponse to try­ing to help T&T build re­silience,” she said, ex­plain­ing that the plan should be seen as part of a broad­er ef­fort to nav­i­gate tur­bu­lent times, not just to bal­ance the coun­try’s books.

Attzs al­so un­der­scored the im­por­tance of col­lab­o­ra­tion across sec­tors, not­ing that while each Caribbean coun­try faces its own set of chal­lenges, the threats of cli­mate change and eco­nom­ic in­sta­bil­i­ty are shared.

“There are a lot of things com­ing at Trinidad and To­ba­go now, as with many oth­er Caribbean coun­tries, but we have to nav­i­gate them to­geth­er,” she said.

With hur­ri­cane sea­sons in­ten­si­fy­ing and ex­treme weath­er events be­com­ing more fre­quent, the econ­o­mist said Caribbean gov­ern­ments must shift from cri­sis re­sponse to proac­tive plan­ning —cre­at­ing the fis­cal space and in­sti­tu­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty need­ed to re­spond ef­fec­tive­ly to nat­ur­al haz­ards and oth­er emerg­ing risks.

Re­silience—whether to eco­nom­ic or cli­mate-re­lat­ed shocks —can­not be an af­ter­thought, she said. It must be the re­gion’s top pri­or­i­ty.