Three ways the Caribbean can strengthen financing for private companies

May 20th, 2016

by Therese Turner-Jones Growing up in The Bahamas, I remember my grandmother’s asue. There weren’t any banks where she lived on the island of Inagua, and even if there had been, it wasn’t customary for women to frequent them. To adapt, women (and sometimes men) formed their own informal savings groups, known as asues. As her […]

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Learning about Jamaica’s Forests by Hiking the Blue Mountains

April 29th, 2016

by Anaitée Mills Panoramic view of the Blue & John Crow Mountains, Jamaica. Xaymaca is the Taino name for Jamaica which translates into “land of wood and water” but how much wood and how much water does Jamaica have today? The Forestry Department figured out a way to teach enthusiastic hikers about the state of […]

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Making People Happy

April 22nd, 2016

by Therese Turner-Jones *Therese Turner-Jones is the General Manager of the Caribbean Country Department at the Inter-American Development Bank. View her TED-style talk at the IDB-IIC Annual Governors’ Meeting that was held in The Bahamas (April 2016) here. Development is not about economic growth but rather about creating freedom, helping people flourish, and simply making […]

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US Supreme Court: One Less Known Example of How a Supreme Court Decision, Shapes Up Judiciary Reality in the Caribbean

April 15th, 2016

by Robert Pantzer “These are young people who made mistakes that aren’t that different than the mistakes I made and the mistakes that a lot of you guys made. What distinguishes many convicts is a lack of support and second chances.”   Barack Obama Not too long a time ago, the 2011 “Brown v. Plata” sharply split […]

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Crime in Paradise: Preview of Forthcoming IDB Study on Crime in the Caribbean

April 8th, 2016

by Heather May Sutton As in other parts of the LAC region, crime and violence have deeply negative effects on businesses and individuals in the Caribbean. The IDB has supported data generation in the region using victimization surveys for individuals and businesses, the highlights of which are presented in this month’s quarterly bulletin with a special focus […]

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Caribbean Diaspora: How Can They Finance Development in the Region?

February 26th, 2016

by Mark D. Wenner The Caribbean diaspora is huge and members tend to send significant amounts of remittances back to the region to help relatives and to invest in property and family businesses.  It is estimated that Caribbean migrants number 4,116,000 in the United States (1.2% of the total population and remitted approximately US$5 billion in […]

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Zika Virus and the Economic and Human Reproductive Health Implications for the Caribbean

February 19th, 2016

by Mark D. Wenner Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons Negative economic impacts expected if link to brain damage is proven. Best hope is that scientists find no link. The Zika virus has arrived in the Western Hemisphere and spawned a degree of alarm not previously witnessed with previous outbreaks involving mosquito borne viral infections like dengue […]

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Proper Solid Waste Management Involves all of us

January 8th, 2016

Who should be involved in Proper Solid Waste Management?

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Victimization surveys: 3 common mistakes to avoid

January 1st, 2016

Victimization surveys are important tools for understanding crime, but can be difficult to design and implement successfully – avoid these common mistakes.

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Social Innovation: The way forward for Civil Society Organizations

December 25th, 2015

by Jermaine Case, Jamaica ConSOC member IDB Annual Civil Society in Honduras. Photo author Brodrick Watson To the uninformed eye, the Marriott hotel erected in New Kingston, Jamaica is just a newly minted addition to the city’s towering infrastructure. But as with most things, there is more than meets the eye. Marriott was constructed in […]

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