The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), CAF - Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) launched today at COP30 the Caribbean Multi-Guarantor Debt-for-Resilience Joint Initiative, a landmark regional effort designed to boost disaster preparedness while easing debt pressures across the Caribbean.

The initiative is a transformative approach to development finance by fostering the simultaneous use of guarantees from different Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) and private sector actors, to scale Debt-for-Resilience swaps and allowing countries to generate new fiscal space while advancing their sustainable development goals in adaptation and resilience, as well as foster regional public goods. 

The initiative will help set up common principles for guarantee terms, and define shared taxonomies and key performance indicators (KPIs) for resilience investments, aligned with global benchmarks. 

The initiative will focus on three strategic goals:

1. Scale up debt-for-resilience swaps in order to generate fiscal space to enhance resilience.
2. Enhance coordination among MDBs, governments, and private sector partners to scale and streamline interventions, in particular Debt-for-Resilience swaps in the region
3. Strengthen transparency, monitoring, and evaluation standards, thereby attracting more investments

The initiative aims to mobilise private capital and deliver impact through enhanced MDB collaboration and streamline the execution of debt swaps, reducing transaction costs and timelines, while enhancing access to investors through robust reporting and monitoring frameworks. Additionally, it will enable financing for resilience and regional public goods that are often difficult to support through traditional funding mechanisms. 

It is also envisaged that each debt swap transaction should include a component that contributes to regional public goods, reinforcing collective resilience across the Caribbean.

The joint initiative intends to create a facility under a Framework Agreement designed to facilitate coordination among guarantors for debt-for-resilience swap transactions, while respecting each institution’s mandates, internal approvals, and formalisation processes.

Debt for Resilience transactions will be tailored to align with national development and sovereign debt management strategies, in accordance with each guarantor’s policies, serving as a platform to facilitate engagement and promote complementarity among guarantors. 

The IDB, CAF, and CDB reaffirm their commitment to advancing innovative financing solutions that foster sustainable and inclusive growth across the Caribbean. Together, they invite partners who are committed to innovative financing for sustainable development in the Caribbean to join this open initiative. The three institutions will actively engage in outreach to bring together organisations and stakeholders who share their vision for resilience.