Belize Explores Possibility of Accessing IDA Funds

Christopher Coye

According to Senator Coye, the Briceño administration is exploring the possibility of being allowed to access funding through a Small Island Economy exception.  He explains the primary criteria that Belize needs to meet in order to be considered.

Christopher Coye, Minister of State, Finance

“In looking at IDA resources, certainly it would have been something that we would benefit from if we had access to it.  But based on our threshold of our income per capita, they are basically saying we’re too rich to access that.  However, there is an exception, it’s called the Small Island Economy exception and that exception has certain criteria to be able to fit in with that exception.  So once you come in that exception, you become eligible for IDA funds.  Principally, or essentially, the exception or the criteria to meet that exception is vulnerability in debt and vulnerability in climate.  So Belize not having even really any external commercial debt clearly has fragility in terms of access to debt on the external commercial markets.  So we meet that criteria, in fact, the World Bank management thinks, in their view, that we fully meet the criteria of both debt and, obviously, climate vulnerability.  Belize is ranked eighth out of a hundred and sixty-seven countries, as far as climate risk is concerned.  I think we have a risk of a hurricane, a forty-six point six percent risk of a hurricane every year.”