CDB to Host Special Discussion Forum in St. Kitts The Caribbean Development Bank will host its series "A Special CDB Discussion Forum" away from the Bank's Headquarters for the first time later this month. A Discussion Forum on the topic "Life After Sugar: The Role for Tourism and Tourism Ancillary Industries" will be held at the Sir Cecil Jacobs Auditorium of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, St. Kitts and Nevis, on Wednesday, November 16, beginning at 7:30 p.m. The panellists will be Ms. Ena Harvey of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), Mr. Atherton Martin of the Caribbean Conservation Association (CCA) and Mr. Cecil Miller of the Caribbean Hotel Association (CHA). Ms. Harvey is the IICA Representative in Barbados; a post she has held since 2002. Ms. Harvey has over 15 years' experience in agriculture and has been involved in the development of the agro-industrial sector in the Caribbean, in areas of technology development and application, implementation of food safety systems, diagnostic benchmarking of small and medium enterprises to world class standards, quality management for production and export, agro-Tourism linkages, women and agricultural development, development of training materials in food safety and food processing.Mr. Martin is the President of the CCA and immediate past president of the Dominica Hotel and Tourism Association. He is also the Executive Director of The Development Institute (TDI) Ltd., a private consulting firm in Dominica. Mr. Martin is an Agronomist and Agricultural Economist by training and has undertaken consulting assignments in various countries throughout Latin America, Africa and the Caribbean, focusing on issues of development planning. His experience encompasses many areas, including farm management and the promotion of agricultural cooperatives in the Caribbean.Mr. Miller is the Business Development Advisor at the Caribbean Regional Sustainable Tourism Development Programme in Barbados. He has served on several regional project teams, as an independent consultant and has presented papers on a range of Tourism issues at regional and international conferences. His experience includes working with the private sector on the development of hotel projects and the development of quality product and training standards for the Tourism and hospitality industry and the establishment of the Sustainable Tourism Foundation, a non-profit entity to attract private sector resources to support Tourism activities of the OAS. The Government of St. Kitts and Nevis has decided to close the sugar industry following the 2005 harvest after decades of losses at the state-run sugar company. The Government has embarked on a programme to diversify the agricultural sector and stimulate the development of other sectors of the economy to compensate for the loss of the sugar industry. St. Kitts and Nevis is a borrowing member country of CDB and the Bank is assisting the government with the transition from sugar.A CDB Special Discussion Forum is a programme of panel discussions and lectures involving personnel from within and outside the Bank, intended to heighten awareness of various issues relevant to Caribbean development and enhanced regional interaction.