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The Covid-19 pandemic started a global inflationary trend that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has exacerbated, pushing up the international prices of energy supplies and basic foods of which the countries of Central America, Panama, the Dominican Republic (CAPARD), Mexico and Haiti depend. This scenario represents a risk to food security in the region. In 2022, the percentage of households with an income below the cost of the basic food basket is expected to increase by more than 5 percentage points compared to 2019, disproportionately affecting women, informal workers, and rural populations. To alleviate these effects, governments have reacted with policy responses that on average represent a fiscal cost of 1.1% of GDP. Recent projections point to a global scenario of low growth and persistent inflation, with food and energy prices still above pre-pandemic levels. This is in addition to other risks facing the region, particularly vulnerability to natural disasters and the effects of climate change. To tackle these challenges, short and long-term actions are required to guarantee access to and sustained supply of adequate quality food. This study, in addition to offering an overview of food security in the region, reports the policy responses of the countries, proposes short-term recommendations to manage a possible food emergency and outlines structural strategies to avoid future crises.

This study presents an analysis of food insecurity and its underlying factors in the Northwest department in Haiti. This department is one of Haitis departments most vulnerable to and affected by food insecurity, with 55 percent of the population in need of urgent assistance (IPC 2022). Using the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) and the Inter-American Banks (IDB) Food Security Framework (IDB 2018), this paper presents a geospatial analysis, complemented by a review of other socioeconomic factors, to provide insights on what is driving this trend and what are the most urgent areas to address. The results show that a decline in domestic production which has been hampered by inadequate infrastructure and financing, insecurity, and natural disasters has occurred alongside international supply chain disruptions, that have affected imports together with stalling aid receipts. Taken together, these factors are having a negative effect on the availability of food. Supply constraints, mobility restrictions, price shocks, and risks to sustained income are also having a negative impact on access to food. Challenges to access potable water and sanitation infrastructure, as well as insufficient diversity in diets, also hinder food utilization, described as the availability of quality food required to attain adequate nutritional status. Moreover, food stability is not guaranteed because of issues related to the regions natural endowments, insufficient irrigation infrastructure, vulnerability to climate shocks, price fluctuations, and insecurity. Based on these findings, this paper recommends 23 actions to expand access to basic services, promote adequate nutrition, support productive and sustainable agriculture, and increase resilience to shocks and stresses. Most importantly, rolling out these measures in an effective way will require a coordinated approach at all administrative levels of the state, from local to national, with the private sector and the donor

This paper analyses the macroeconomic effects of Hurricanes Joaquin (2015), Matthew (2016), Irma (2017), and Dorian (2019) across different islands in The Bahamas. The methodology used, based on Zegarra et al. (2020), uses historical night light intensity data between 2015 and 2019 and monthly GDP. The analysis is complemented by a breakdown of the direct and indirect costs by island that compiles the information in the four Damages and Losses Assessments conducted by the Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean and the Inter-American Development Bank. The results suggest, first, that the year-to-year nominal growth rate in The Bahamas decreased during the month and quarter of each hurricane event, but that there was no contraction of the countrys growth rate in the year of the event. However, all islands showed a significant contraction in GDP after the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, which overlapped with the effects of Hurricane Dorian. Second, large islands like New Providence and Grand Bahama experienced larger GDP contractions following the hurricanes, but no such clear pattern was obtained for the Family Islands. Third, macroeconomic recovery times to achieve pre-hurricane GDP levels took between 4-8 months on average for the four events studied. Fourth, the composition of sectors affected by the events did not seem to have a major effect on the severity of the economic shock. For all the hurricanes studied, tourism, transport infrastructure, and housing were recurrently the most affected sectors. Based on the findings of the analysis, recommendations include the following: (1) Make greater use of these methodologies to study the macroeconomic effects of natural disasters, supplemented by microeconomic, social, and sector-specific studies; (2) Conduct further analysis of island-specific economic drivers and post-hurricane economic effects; and (3) Promote climate change adaptation and disaster risk management to reinforce macroeconomic resilienc

This dataset constitutes a panel follow-up to the 2016 Barbados Survey of Living Conditions. It measures welfare related variables before and after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic including labor market outcomes, financial literacy, and food security. The survey was executed in November 2020. The Barbados COVID-19 Survey is a project of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). It collected data on critical socioeconomic topics in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic to support policymaking and help mitigate the crisis impacts on the populations welfare. The first survey round recontacted households interviewed in 2016 by the Barbados Survey of Living Conditions (BSLC) and was conducted by phone due to the mobility restrictions and social distancing measures in place. It interviewed 896 households and all their members over 29 days during May and June 2020 and gathered information about disease transmission, household finances, labor, income, remittances, spending, and social protection programs. Data and documentation of this first round can be found at: https://publications.iadb.org/en/covid-19-household-telephone-survey-barbados The second round was carried out in November 2020 and recontacted respondent households from the first round. It focused on labor and interviewed 758 households. Both Barbados COVID-19 Survey rounds were designed and implemented by Sistemas Integrales. This publication describes the second rounds main methodological aspects, such as sample design, estimation procedures, topics covered by the questionnaire, field organization and quality control. It also presents the structure and codebook for the two resulting datasets.

This volume focuses on economic institutions defined as rules and organizational arrangements that, if they govern the design and implementation of fiscal and monetary policies, can better align those policies with long-run citizen interests. Specifically, the economic institutions covered are those that promote more sustainable fiscal management, adequate implementation of monetary policy, and more resilient financial systems. On fiscal management, the book covers public revenue administrations, public financial management systems, public debt management institutions, fiscal rules, medium-term fiscal frameworks, independent fiscal councils, and the design features of sovereign wealth funds. While pension schemes are not a fiscal institution, they are also analyzed because of the fiscal burden and contingencies that these systems may entail. In terms of institutions that support effective monetary policy, the focus is on the importance of central bank independence and transparency. On financial systems, the book analyzes the relevance of financial regulation and supervision to promote more stable and efficient markets that are better suited to confront challenges and more resilient against external shocks. Some institutional enhancements that foster access to credit and deeper financial systems are also analyzed.

Except for Barbados, the Caribbean region experienced a new surge of Covid cases in the middle of this summer. Several factors contributed to this unfortunate situation: a rise in imported cases as borders opened, a rise in community transmission as domestic social distancing measures were eased, and elections with in-person voting in three countries: Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica. Governments are adjusting their sanitary precautions and social and economic policy responses to the evolving situation. In addition to these current events, the “pre-existing” conditions in terms of poverty and inequality - along with the pre-crisis institutional situations in the countries - have an effect on how governments can, and should, respond to the current crisis. This third special edition of the IDB Caribbean Quarterly Bulletin provides an update of health and economic conditions in the region. It also focuses on the policy response from both the comparative and institutional perspectives with the aim of distilling lessons from policy interventions undertaken within the region and elsewhere that have been successful in dampening the current shock, while also providing the basis for stronger future growth.

This dataset constitute a panel follow-up to the 2016 Barbados Survey of Living Conditions. It measures welfare related variables before and after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic including labor market outcomes, financial literacy, and food security. The survey was executed between May and June 2020. The Barbados COVID-19 Survey is a project of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). It collected data on critical socioeconomic topics in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic to support policymaking that can help curb the crisis impacts on the populations welfare. It recontacted households that had been interviewed by the Barbados Survey of Living Conditions (BSLC) in 2016 and was phone-based, given the mobility restrictions and social distancing measures in place. It interviewed 896 households and all their members over 29 days during May and June 2020 and gathered information on disease transmission, household finances, labor, income, remittances, spending and social protection programs. The Barbados COVID-19 Survey was designed and implemented by Sistemas Integrales. This report describes the main methodological aspects of the survey, such as sample design, estimation procedures, topics covered by the questionnaire, field organization and quality control. It also presents the structure and contents of the resulting datasets. Find the publication related to this dataset in: https://publications.iadb.org/en/consequences-covid-19-livelihoods-barbados-results-telephone-survey

This paper provides an insight on the gender impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Caribbean. The analysis makes use of the April 2020 online COVID-19 survey that the Inter-American Development conducted in all six Caribbean Country Department member countries. We find that the pandemic is having different effects on men and women. For example, job losses have been more prevalent amongst single-females, whilst business closures have been more prevalent amongst single-males. Quality of life also seems to have worsened more for single-females than for single-males and partners (married or common law partnership) and domestic violence against women has been on the rise. Although the coverage of social assistance programs has increased substantially during the pandemic, we find that more targeting of households with single females could be beneficial, particularly as they show lower levels of financial resilience. Going forward, we recommend further gender targeting in social assistance programs and the collection of gender-disaggregated data that will allow for more thorough investigation of the gender effects of these types of shocks.

We conducted a telephone-based nationally representative survey of Barbados between May and June 2020. The main objective was to quantify the early consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. We document significant labor market disruptions with relatively more severe consequences among low income households. In addition, we present for the first time objective financial literacy measures. The findings suggest that increased financial literacy is correlated with more resilience to the detrimental consequences of the pandemic. In terms of policymaking, the results point to the following recommendations. First, job protection and business support will be important to bridge the gap that the country will experience until it can completely reopen, and tourism can safely start again. Existing measures to promote employment should be maintained and further prioritized going forward. Second, means to support financial resilience are important for households to better cope during the period, whether in the form of savings or greater financial literacy. These two issues should be further prioritized in the government’s strategy going forward to cushion people from shocks. Finally, the social protection system has been the most vital tool to support the population during these hard times. Despite some leakage, the new programs showed signs of better targeting and are the most important lifeline for many in the country. Maintaining these programs and improving their efficiency and targeting will be of outmost importance in this crisis. Going forward, we recommend generating more evidence on the severity and length of the shock, as well as improving the understanding of how to better target social assistance programs to provide efficient and sustainable support to Barbados citizens. Find the dataset related to this publication in https://publications.iadb.org/en/covid-19-household-telephone-survey-barbados

This paper analyzes the potential effects that distributed ledger technology (DLT) could have on intraregional trade volumes in the Caribbean. Using a two-step panel regression gravity model for 15 CARICOM countries, the analysis finds that non-tariff barriers, such as distance and culture, bilateral exchange rates, transfer fees, and required documentation, have negative effects on trade. There are a rising number of pilot projects across the world that apply DLT for payment settlemetns and trade facilitation. These are starting to generate encouraging evidence that the application of DLT could indeed help reduce the prevalence of some of these NTBs and thus promote trade.

COVID-19 has triggered a severe and unprecedented economic crisis in the Caribbean region. The combination of the halt in tourism arrivals, the fall in international oil prices, and a widespread roll out of curfews is having a severe economic impact on the region. All six countries in the IDB's Caribbean Department, namely The Bahamas, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago are now expecting a worse economic outlook than that forecast in January 2020. The majority of these countries' economies are forecast to contract in 2020, their fiscal out-turn has worsened, and their debt is growing at a faster pace than had originally been foretasted for 2020. This paper presents the results of these online surveys by country. Which in turn is hoped that the evidence presented on livelihoods will inform policymakers and add to the body of research being produced during these unprecedented times.

Governments in the Caribbean region have been relatively successful in flattening the infection curve of the coronavirus in their countries. Geographical isolation is a contributing factor, but decisive and determined government action has been effective in reducing community transmission. Many potential deaths have been avoided. Yet this accomplishment has yet to be compensated with an economic reward. As these countries begin to open their domestic economies, they are still battered by external shocks. This is particularly the case for the tourism-dependent economies that experienced a virtual shutdown of the sector during the second quarter of the year. The natural-resource-based economies are also suffering from the lingering effects of the decline in commodity prices and related external demand. This second special edition of the IDB Caribbean Quarterly Bulletin provides an update of economic conditions in the region. It also focuses on important evolving issues, including the potential impact of the corona virus crisis on countries balance of payments, and on new data from the IDB on the real-time social effects of the crisis.

The policies being implemented in the region to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 are short-term support mechanisms, to ensure income for the most vulnerable groups and support to firms facing demand and supply shocks. These policies, although essential at this time, have 2 limitations (i) they do not solve the longer-term problems related to informality and low labor and firm productivity, which characterize Latin America and the Caribbean and (ii) are not sustainable in the medium term given the macroeconomic and fiscal challenges the region was facing before the pandemic. The crisis has further highlighted the pre-existing socio-economic vulnerabilities and the region's lack of preparedness for extreme events. These reports identify these vulnerabilities and the medium and long-term priorities for each of the Bank's borrowing countries in a post-COVID-19 region, structuring them along three areas: (i) productive policies; (ii) social policies and (iii) macro-fiscal policies.

These briefings identify the economic consequences of the outbreak of COVID-19 in each of the IDBG borrowing member countries, as of April 3rd, 2020.

This policy brief summarizes challenges in the infrastructure sectors of The Bahamas, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago. It also includes recommendations to overcome these challenges, along with an overview of the PPP framework, national development plans, and ongoing initiatives.

The concepts of economic growth, public debt, and the government’s fiscal balance are strongly intertwined. In Barbados, low growth and recurring fiscal deficits have led to rapid accumulation of debt, which at over 155 percent of GDP in 2017 and the first half of 2018, has been the highest in the Latin American and Caribbean region. In response, the Government of Barbados is carrying out a set of ambitious reforms, including a fiscal consolidation program and debt restructuring. Yet, given the important role of economic growth on the required fiscal adjustment and on the debt-to-GDP ratio, it will be key to ensure that the design and scope of the adjustment support a balanced approach, reducing debt without undermining growth. This paper reviews and explains the recent debt trajectory in Barbados. It then discusses the potential effects of real GDP growth on the debt-to-GDP ratio and the required fiscal adjustment going forward. In so doing, it highlights the importance of a balanced approach between fiscal adjustment and growth stimulus for a sustainable debt path.

Barbados is a small tourism based economy accounting directly for 12 percent of real gross domestic product and over 40 percent of GDP when considering indirect spillovers to other sectors. It has several structural constraints to the economy such as low levels of diversification and limited competitiveness. Given the economy's profile this report has identified four key areas that present structural challenges to growth and development. Barbados has enormous potential, but it needs to return to macroeconomic stability and address key constraints to growth.