His Excellency Keith Mitchell, Chair of CARICOM and Prime Minister of Grenada;
His Excellency Irwin LaRocque, Secretary-General of CARICOM
Ms. Jessica Faieta, UNDP Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean;
Excellencies, distinguished delegates and government representatives;
Ladies and Gentlemen.
 
I am pleased to see so many of us here to partner with the Caribbean for a more sustainable future. Today is the day. This is the day for us all to translate our solidarity and support into concrete commitments to drive  the early recovery  of the Caribbean islands impacted by hurricanes Irma and Maria and invest, together with these countries, in building their resilience to withstand future extreme climate events and other external shocks and stay on a path to sustainable development.
 
 
The needs are enormous; and they are exceeded by the ambition to build back better, achieve the sustainable development goals and secure a stable and prosperous future for their citizens.  We heard the words of the Prime Ministers earlier this morning.
Your pledges today will be crucial for  the recovery of the region. This financing is very much needed and will complement ongoing domestic efforts.  Early disbursement, and predictable and sustained co-investments are essential as recovery is a long-term process.
We know that dramatic disasters like these often lead to a  ‘spike’ in responses. This time, as development partners, we must maintain focus.  We cannot afford to lose interest until the next big disaster.  Sustained finance, better aligned to the reality of small islands states with high vulnerability to climate change, is necessary to build resilience in the region.
Colleagues in the previous session have emphasized this point. Recently, I have myself repeatedly highlighted the importance of a framework for action in aligning finance with the needs of resilience. And we need to act now, this finance is needed today, not in five or ten years.
Many of the small island states in the Caribbean are not eligible for concessional finance or ODA. Efforts to find ‘creative’ ways to extend concessional resources to these countries on an exceptional basis are welcome. 
I am pleased that UNDP, the World Bank and other international organisations, such as the Commonwealth Secretariat, Caribbean Development Bank, OECD and others, are looking at how vulnerability may be used to help determine eligibility for concessional finance.  We encourage this work to move from concern, dialogue and technical analysis to practical changes in this area so that pleading for exceptions will not be path these countries will need to continue to pursue in the future..
But new rules governing access to concessionary financing cannot be the whole solution to what is a systemic threat. We know that disasters such as these will happen again and again in the Caribbean, and increasingly elsewhere.
 
 
To deal with such a systemic threat, the international community needs to put in place long-term concessionary financing facilities, employing  a mix of instruments. For example, in Bonn last week at COP23, InsuResilience Initiative announced a new Global Partnership and an additional US$125 million from the Government of Germany to support its aim of providing affordable insurance coverage to 400 more million poor and vulnerable people by 2020.   Robust and affordable insurance is key, but again only part of the solution.
Debt relief is also essential. High debt levels are a persistent and unresolved problem for many Caribbean countries with cases of debt levels averaging 84% of GDP, in part because of debt raised to overcome the impacts of earlier natural disasters. Amidst the tragedy for many Caribbean citizens, the region continues to service its debt. 
There are multiple ways to go about addressing the problem of high indebtedness.  Debt payments held by official bodies can be postponed or cancelled, as we saw recently for countries facing the effects of Ebola. 
 
 
Innovative proposals such as ECLAC and UNDP’s proposal for converting debt into financing for resilience need to be transformed from great ideas into practice. We invite the international community to work with the UN to operationalize these ideas.
While we improve the international financing architecture to make it more supportive of small vulnerable countries, we also need to implement and scale-up innovations in finance that could be useful for the Caribbean  and, as a matter of fact, also other Small Island Developing States facing similar issues.
Innovations could include:

• Use of blue and green bonds for investments in sustainable infrastructure and a sustainable ocean economy;
• Use of so-called ‘state-contingent’ debt instruments, such as hurricane clauses and countercyclical loan instruments to reduce the risks of debt crises and create temporary fiscal space in countries affected by major disasters; and
• Accelerating a reduction in the cost of transfer of remittances and strategies to support diaspora communities to invest ‘back home’.

Ultimately, finance is a means to an end. The end is resilience, of countries and of their people. In the context of the Caribbean, this means climate resilient infrastructure, diversified economies and livelihoods, sustainable natural resources management and sustainable energy systems.
For example, maybe there has never been a better moment to green the region’s energy systems, and to strengthen its resilience through decentralization, using distributed solar linked to the best that digital innovation can offer. We are pleased that this will be a key topic for discussion at the forthcoming summit on climate and finance co-hosted by President Macron, the United Nations, and the World Bank in December.
In essence, we must rebuild differently.  We must rebuild better if the region wants to achieve the commitments of the Agenda 2030.
 
 
No single agency can deliver all this and partnerships will be key. The partnership with the private sector will be particularly important and we are pleased that many of its representatives are here today and have shown such an interest in working with the authorities in Caribbean countries and with development partners.
Let me conclude by saying that hurricanes Irma and Maria have not only caused death and destruction; they have also revealed, once again, the enormous number of individuals with giving hearts in the region and beyond. There has been an outpouring of solidarity from neighbouring countries, the diaspora and the international community. I am sure that this conference will confirm this sentiment.

Thank You