The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding, last Friday, to support renewable energy and energy-efficiency projects for the mitigation of climate change in Latin America and the Caribbean. The MOU was signed by IDB President Luis Alberto Moreno and JICA’s President Sadako Ogata, former United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. JICA, which administers the Official Development Assistance (ODA) of the Japanese government, is the world’s largest bilateral aid agency with operations in more than 150 countries and regions, and has…
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IDB issues Poverty Reduction Bonds
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and Daiwa Securities Group announced an issuance of the Poverty Reduction Bonds (the “Bonds”) to support poverty alleviation and improve the living conditions of new generations in Latin America and the Caribbean. These bonds are IDB’s first impact investment bonds for 2011, and they will be offered in Japan, the bank said in a statement. The IDB’s Poverty Reduction Bonds provide an opportunity to Japanese retail investors to contribute to poverty reduction in Latin America and the Caribbean. The IDB is supporting programmes to reduce…
Read MoreLooming food crisis could take toll on Caricom – Jagdeo
As the Caribbean braces itself for an impending global food crisis, Guyana’s president Bharrat Jagdeo, acknowledged that efforts on the part of many Caricom member states to adopt a regional agricultural strategy have waned. As such, Jagdeo, who has lead responsibility for agriculture in the Caricom quasi Cabinet believes the significant impact of this looming crisis is inevitable on those states. It is still his opinion that the region should pay more attention to agriculture, which is why in 2002 he proposed to a Caribbean Heads of Government Conference that…
Read MoreUN, partners launch multi-million-dollar development project in Haiti
The United Nations and its partners have launched in southwest Haiti a 20-year, multi-million-dollar environmental recovery programme that aims to benefit more than 200,000 people and show that sustainable rural development, from fisheries to tourism, is indeed practical. “Restoring the region’s environmental services will be a key step towards restoring a real and long-lasting development path for its people, and a stepping stone towards a green economy,” UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director Achim Steiner said at the inauguration of the US$200 million project in Port Salut, southern Haiti. The…
Read MoreHaiti’s PM says government will accept advice from OAS/Caricom team
Haiti’s Prime Minister, Jean Max Bellerive, says the outgoing government in that French-speaking country will accept advice from the Organisation of American States (OAS)/Caricom team on the disputed presidential elections last year. The Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) had named former First Lady Mirlande Manigat, 70, a law professor; and Jude Celestin, President Rene Preval’s protégé, as the front runners in the disputed November 28 presidential elections. The two-candidate runoff was scheduled to take place on January 16, but results from the first round of voting are yet to be finalised.…
Read MoreNew US law grants legal status to orphaned Haitian children
United States immigration authorities say a new law has gone into effect, granting lawful permanent resident status to certain orphaned children from Haiti. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said the Help Haitian Adoptees Immediately To Integrate Act of 2010 (Help HAITI Act of 2010) gives authority to grant Green Cards to Haitian orphans who were evacuated to the United States under the Haitian Orphan Parole Programme after last year’s earthquake. President Barack Obama signed the bill into law last month. Nebraska Republican Congressman Jeff Fortenberry, the primary sponsor…
Read MoreIDB approved US$12.9B in projects for Latin America, Caribbean this year
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) approved a record number of projects in 2010 – 170, totalling an estimated US$12.9 billion, as the bank continues to boost its efforts to help Latin America and the Caribbean combat poverty and inequality, and promote sustainable growth. This compares with 165 projects totalling US$15.9 billion in 2009, when the IDB expanded its lending in the face of the global financial crisis. The region’s countries have largely recovered during 2010, with the percentage of people below the poverty line falling to 31.9 per cent of…
Read MoreAgreement reached for protection of illegal Caribbean immigrants in New York
Outgoing New York Governor David Paterson says he has reached an agreement with United States federal officials to help protect illegal Caribbean and other nationals without criminal records. Paterson, the grandson of Jamaican and Grenadian immigrants, says the agreement seeks to appease critics of a new government programme to strengthen immigration enforcement. He said the agreement ensures that immigrants who pose the greatest threat to public safety are “a priority” for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). “While I am very concerned with…
Read MoreFour Guyanese die in T&T highway crash
Four Guyanese were among five people killed in a horrific accident in Trinidad and Tobago on Friday night, December 24th. As thousands around the country celebrated Christmas on Saturday, Ingrid Watterton, a Laventille woman, was coming to terms with the news that her daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter had been killed in the vehicular accident. With tears streaming down her face, seated in her daughter’s apartment at Burke Terrace, El Socorro Extension, Watterton said, “I was just hoping it was a dream.” A three-car smash-up along the east-bound lane of the…
Read MoreNew York governor pardons more Caribbean nationals
New York Governor David Paterson has granted pardons to 24 immigrants, including Caribbean nationals who were due to be deported because of prior criminal convictions. Though he did not identify the nationalities of all the immigrants who had faced deportation, Paterson singled out Haitian Edouard Colas. Governor Paterson, the grandson of Jamaican and Grenadian immigrants, said Colas was brought to the United States from Haiti as a lawful permanent resident at age 10, but was convicted in 1997 of attempted burglary in the third degree, and sentenced to five years…
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