Summary

The Exogenous Shock Response (ESR) Policy-Based Operations (PBO) series, which consisted of two stand-alone operations, was approved by the Caribbean Development Bank’s (CDB) Board on December 12, 2019, and September 24, 2020, respectively. The series was initially deployed to assist the Government of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas (GOCB) to cope with the fallout from Hurricane Dorian, which made landfall on the Abaco Islands as a Category 5 storm. By the time the second operation in the series was appraised, The Bahamas had been struck by a second catastrophic shock, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. This severely impacted tourism, the country’s leading source of income and employment. In response, CDB adjusted the operation’s objectives and design to address the effects of the pandemic. The amount of the second operation was also increased relative to the amount originally planned for (by USD15 million (mn) to help the country cope with the effects of the pandemic. The Implementation Completion Report (ICR) was finalized on June 13, 2022, and was validated by the Office of Independent Evaluation (OIE) in February 2023. The Evaluator rates the overall performance of the PBL as Satisfactory, consistent with the rating in the ICR. With respect to the individual criteria, relevance received a Highly Satisfactory rating, while effectiveness, sustainability, and efficiency were given Satisfactory ratings, using the Performance Assessment System (PAS) 2013. This validation concurs with the ratings in the ICR.