Grena­da will host the third edi­tion of the Caribbean NDC In­vest­ment Fo­rum & Mar­ket­place, the St. Lu­cia-based Or­gan­i­sa­tion of East­ern Caribbean States (OECS) Com­mis­sion has an­nounced.

It said that the arch 31 to April 2 event is be­ing held in col­lab­o­ra­tion with sev­er­al re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners and will bring to­geth­er pol­i­cy­mak­ers, pri­vate sec­tor lead­ers, de­vel­op­ment agen­cies, and in­vestors to ac­cel­er­ate fi­nanc­ing for cli­mate ac­tion and re­silience-build­ing in the Caribbean.

The event is be­ing spon­sored by the Grena­da gov­ern­ment, the Eu­ro­pean Union Glob­al Gate­way, the Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank (CDB), the OPEC Fund for In­ter­na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment, the Glob­al Green Growth In­sti­tute (GG­GI), and the NDC.

It will be held un­der the theme “In­vest­ing in Cli­mate Ac­tion for a Re­silient Fu­ture,” and the OECS Com­mis­sion said it will build on the suc­cess­es of pre­vi­ous fo­rums held in St. Lu­cia in 2018 and 2022, re­spec­tive­ly.

“As the re­gion works to­wards im­ple­ment­ing sec­ond-gen­er­a­tion Na­tion­al­ly De­ter­mined Con­tri­bu­tions (ND­Cs) un­der the Paris Agree­ment, this Fo­rum will serve as a vi­tal plat­form to fos­ter part­ner­ships, share best prac­tices, and mo­bilise fi­nanc­ing for sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment,” the OECS Com­mis­sion said.

It not­ed that since the adop­tion of the Paris Agree­ment in 2015, all six in­de­pen­dent OECS mem­ber states, name­ly An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Do­mini­ca, Grena­da, St. Lu­cia, St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines and St. Kitts-Nevis, have rat­i­fied the treaty, com­mit­ting to am­bi­tious emis­sions re­duc­tion and cli­mate adap­ta­tion tar­gets.

“How­ev­er, achiev­ing these tar­gets re­quires sig­nif­i­cant fi­nan­cial and tech­ni­cal sup­port, be­yond the means of OECS Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States (SIDS). The Caribbean NDC Fi­nance Ini­tia­tive (ND­C­FI), launched in 2017, was es­tab­lished to as­sist in bridg­ing this gap by catalysing in­vest­ments in low-car­bon and re­silient in­fra­struc­ture,” it added.

The Com­mis­sion said that the NDC In­vest­ment Fo­rum aims to recog­nise the suc­cess­es of the ND­C­FI and its role in ad­vanc­ing NDC im­ple­men­ta­tion, ex­pand the ND­C­FI net­work to dri­ve am­bi­tious cli­mate ac­tion and en­hance fi­nan­cial sus­tain­abil­i­ty as well as strength­en col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween gov­ern­ments, pri­vate sec­tor en­ti­ties, Non-Gov­ern­men­tal Or­gan­i­sa­tions (NGOs), and in­ter­na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment part­ners.

It is al­so in­tend­ed to show­case Caribbean cli­mate lead­er­ship and in­vest­ment-ready projects.

Fa­cil­i­tate match­mak­ing be­tween project de­vel­op­ers and po­ten­tial in­vestors as well as high­light in­no­v­a­tive, scal­able projects in en­er­gy, wa­ter, in­fra­struc­ture, and food pro­duc­tion.

The or­gan­is­ers hope the event will al­so at­tract new part­ners, col­lab­o­ra­tors, and sources of fi­nance, adding that a core com­po­nent of the NDC In­vest­ment Fo­rum is the Mar­ket­place, which will be a hub for cli­mate in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties, pro­vid­ing a dy­nam­ic space for con­nect­ing buy­ers, sell­ers, and fi­nanciers of cli­mate so­lu­tions.

It will fea­ture in­vest­ment match­mak­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties, coach­ing and ca­pac­i­ty-build­ing ses­sions, a re­silient cli­mate fair with booths, demon­stra­tions, and ex­hibits as well as pre­sen­ta­tions tai­lored to the pri­vate sec­tor and in­vestors.

The Com­mis­sion said that the Mar­ket­place will be open to a di­verse range of stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al pri­vate sec­tor rep­re­sen­ta­tives, trade as­so­ci­a­tions and fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions as well as de­vel­op­ment and in­ter­na­tion­al fund­ing agen­cies, en­gi­neer­ing and con­struc­tion firms, gov­ern­ment agen­cies and pol­i­cy­mak­ers.

ST. GEORGE’S, Grena­da, Feb 10, CMC

CMC/fh/ir/2025