The United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15) held in Montreal in December 2022 concluded with strong support for ocean conservation and biodiversity. Currently, 17% of land and 8% of marine areas are under protection and there was strong consensus on the need for effective conservation and management of at least 30% of the world’s land, coastal areas, and oceans.
Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) has made significant strides towards renewable energy and low carbon solutions.
It is often said that technology and the arts have a long and special relationship that permeates all stages of human development. Art is even part of the word technology - the word 'technology' stems from two Greek words Techne (art, skill, craft) and logos (discourse, thought, principle). Given this close relationship between art and technology it is not surprising that in the course of their work, artists often develop new techniques and push the boundaries of the imagination in ways that can provoke new directions in technology development.
While 2022 represented a year of recovery for the Caribbean, following drastic economic contractions for many economies in 2020, exogenous economic shocks derailed anticipated progress. High fuel prices spurred increases in transportation and electricity costs across the region, contributing to rising headline inflation. The most recent edition of the IDB’s Caribbean Economics Quarterly highlights the effects of these economic headwinds on the six members of the IDB’s Caribbean Department, including Trinidad and Tobago.
During the pandemic, the IDB Country Office in Guyana embraced drone technology to advance project supervision, an innovative way of yielding greater value in project execution.
“What date was that picture taken?” asks the contractor looking at an image of a road construction project in Georgetown, Guyana.
“On May 4,” the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) transport consultant replies.
After two tumultuous years, 2023 remains characterized by headwinds facing countries across the world. Our previous publications have highlighted the unprecedented nature of the COVID-19 shock to economies across the Caribbean region, particularly given its extreme dependence on external demand for resources, tourism, and finance.
Financial institutions and markets are integral in enabling transactions, intermediating savings for businesses in need of financing, allocating scarce financial resources and facilitating risk diversification. Modern economies rely on these financial institutions and markets to finance private sector development. For economies like The Bahamas, the post-pandemic recovery will be fueled in part by such domestic institutions and markets. If they are not well developed, widely accessible, and efficient, their effectiveness in aiding the recovery will not be fully realized.
Joint research from the IDB’s Caribbean Department, IDB Invest, and the Complete Caribbean Partnership uses enterprise survey data to highlight that firms from across the Caribbean face challenges when it comes to access to finance, particularly given the depth and development of credit and capital markets. Findings suggest that the most pressing barriers to finance are burdensome collateral requirements, high interest rates, complex application requirements, and an inability to find credit instruments compatible with borrowing needs.
The digital grocery ecosystem represents the future of retail, and a successful digital transformation presents significant opportunities for all businesses, especially SMEs. It’s an opportunity to broaden markets, offer customers better experiences, ensure continuity, accelerate growth, and become more resilient. In this blog series we have been exploring the digital grocery ecosystem in the Caribbean, and in this post we examine the digital maturity journey of an SME in Trinidad and Tobago.
A recent New York Times article declared, “Caribbean nations are trapped between the global financial system and a looming climate disaster. One country’s leader has been fighting to find a way out.”
That country is Barbados, and the leader is Mia Motley, Prime Minister and climate innovator extraordinaire.