The Caribbean Development Fund: Economic Sense or Political Expediency?

The Caribbean Development Fund: Economic Sense or Political Expediency? Professor Havelock Brewster: Rationale for the CARICOM Development Fund The Preamble to the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas states that: 1. The establishment of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) is intended to achieve sustained economic development based on international competitiveness, coordinated economic and foreign policies, functional cooperation, and enhanced trade and economic relations with third states; 2. There is a need to achieve the highest levels of production efficiency in order to improve the level of living in Caribbean economies through maximizing foreign exchange earnings on the basis of international competitiveness; and 3. Member states accept that optimal production by economic enterprises in the Caribbean Community requires the structured integration of production in the Region, and particularly the unrestricted movement of capital, labour and technology. The Revised Treaty also recognized that Community Member-States exhibit differences in income levels and economic performance; and that some Member States, reflecting differences in resource endowments and in levels of development of physical and institutional infrastructure, will be less able than others to take advantage of the opportunities offered by integration, and may even be disadvantaged by the process. The 1

Revised Treaty, therefore, provided for a regime for disadvantaged countries, regions and sectors. This, in effect, provides for special and differential treatment of Member States that are regarded as being less developed, providing for such treatment, on a transitional and temporary basis, to address dislocation in countries, regions and sectors caused by the operation of the CSME. The CARICOM Development Fund (CDF) forms part of the special regime for disadvantaged countries, regions and sectors. Its purpose, as set out in Articles 158 of the Revised Treaty, is to provide financial or technical assistance to such disadvantaged countries, regions and sectors. As stated in the Revised Treaty, the beneficiaries on whose behalf the Development Fund may be used include: (a) Disadvantaged countries as defined in Article 4 of the Revised Treaty (currently the six independent countries of the OECS, Belize, and Montserrat); (b) Countries, regions and sectors experiencing dislocation arising out of the operation of the CSME, or which are adversely affected by CSME operations; (c) Countries or regions experiencing temporary low levels of economic development; (d) Countries or regions where resources are impaired as a result of natural disaster, or sectors which require special support measures as a result of social and economic disorder, resulting from natural disaster damage; and (e) Countries designated as Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs). Economic Sense? The CDF evidently was patterned in concept after the Structural Funds of the 2

European Union (EU). In practice, the comparison makes little sense for several reasons. The more developed EU States have sufficient resources at their disposal to ensure that the objective of narrowing the income gap between themselves and the lesser-developed EU States is pursued; although the extent to which those funds, as such, have actually realized their objective is a matter that is itself in doubt. In the context of CARICOM, the burden for doing so would fall only on Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and Jamaica. These three States simply do not have the means to provide the level of resources, on a sustained basis, that would be needed by the twelve disadvantaged States to make a significant difference to their structural transformation, and thus to narrowing the development gap notwithstanding the relatively higher per capita incomes of Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados, while Jamaica struggles to make ends meet. Moreover, it is unrealistic to expect that grants of any significance, additional to existing commitments, will be forthcoming from the international community for the purpose of supporting countries that already have per capita incomes, on average ten to twenty times that of deserving aid recipients. The anomalous situation whereby the per capita income levels of several of the OECS States rivals or exceeds those of the prospective CARICOM donor countries (Table 1), hardly strengthens popular, if not political, confidence that there is a lot of economic sense in CDF, unlike the situation in the EU where an income means test is used. Table 1: CARICOM Member-States GDP Per Capita 3

Countries Per Capita Income US$ (2003) Relative Levels Antigua & Barbuda 11,124 14.14 Bahamas 16,691 21.22 Barbados 9,651 12.27 Belize 3,891 4.95 Dominica 3,554 4.52 Grenada 4,103 5.22 Guyana 911 1.16 Haiti 460 0.58 Jamaica 2,962 3.77 St. Kitts & Nevis 7,641 9.72 Saint Lucia 4,048 5.15 St. Vincent & the Grenadines 3,329 4.23 Suriname 2,470 3.14 Trinidad & Tobago 7,836 9.96 TOTALS 78,671 100 Notes: GDP at market prices, converted to US$ at year-average exchange rates.data source: ECLAC. Then too, the premise behind the CDF that development-narrowing structural transformation/production diversification is possible, to make up for the damages 4

inflicted by regional and international trade liberalization, the loss of traditional trade preferences, and oil and food price increases, is largely unfounded. It is apparent that the only viable course of development open to the Eastern Caribbean States is a competitive tourism-based industry, with some domestic agriculture in one or two of them. There is no real future for these States in other services, including financial and information technology services, as they have either been pre-empted or lack the necessary skills and competitiveness. 5

Political Expediency? The Eastern Caribbean States (ECS) in particular have been insistent that the CDF, already provided for in the Revised Treaty, should be implemented. Their participation in the CSME became virtually conditional on the activation of the Fund, on their own terms. Apart from the basic Treaty rationale for the Fund, as noted above, much has been made of the proposition that the ECS have not benefited from the CARICOM integration process -indeed have actually incurred net losses and thus CDF resources are urgently needed to set in motion their structural transformation/diversification, thereby to put them in a position to make use of the opportunities opened up by that process. Several reservations may be entered in respect of this proposition. To begin with, to date there has not been a proper accounting of the benefits and costs of CARICOM integration. While it is true that the ECS have gained little, and may even have lost, by way of exports of goods to the rest of CARICOM (ROC), while increasing their imports from that source, this does not account for benefits that may have come from trade in services, employment of labour, private capital provided by the ROC, Official Development Assistance (ODA), especially from Trinidad and Tobago, CARICOM functional cooperation, and from the disproportionate access these States have had to investment and technical cooperation from the Caribbean Development Bank, much of it on heavily concessional terms. These have certainly contributed, in particular, to the progress they have made in tourism services provided to the rest of the world (ROW), and to ROC. The gains from integration need not come only from increased exports of goods and services to the ROC. Moreover, increased imports from the ROC are a cost only if they represent a diversion of imports from cheaper sources, an unlikely occurrence 6

in this case. Secondly, such structural transformation that would make it possible to realize export opportunities to the ROC is, as noted above, unlikely. There is little prospect that the ECS will become a major exporter to the ROC. ECS benefits will continue to come mainly from the export of labour to, and import of private capital from the ROC, from CDB investments, and the Trinidad and Tobago petroleum stabilization funds, and thus from the impact these will have on tourism and related services sold mainly to the ROW. The ECS have also made much of the point that the CDF needs to support them by way of grants rather than loans as governments are already excessively mortgaged, and have virtually no capacity for additional debt. These assertions are also questionable. With the possible exception of St. Kitts and Nevis, public debt and debt servicing are within sustainable levels (Table 2). They are in fact much better than those of Jamaica (and Guyana and Belize). Indeed, the ECS continue to borrow from the CDB, while some have been graduated out of access to World Bank lending. Table 2: OECS Countries Public Debt over the years 1999 2004 Total Public Debt as % of GDP OECS Countries Antigua and Barbuda 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 72.1 70.5 69.8 71.7 63.2 63.8 7

Dominica 53.1 65.6 60.7 73.2 75.3 73.7 Grenada 36.2 40.6 45.3 71.8 71.6 83.5 Montserrat 22.6 19.0 17.3 11.3 9.3 8.3 St. Kitts and Nevis 72.5 76.1 90.8 105.0 116.9 110.1 Saint Lucia 29.5 26.4 25.1 39.2 47.4 48.5 St. Vincent and 53.9 55.7 57.1 55.9 53.9 51.4 Grenadines The magnitude, sources of funding, and modalities of the CDF thus became the major issue in respect of its operationalisation (other important issues not discussed here relate to the formula for contributions, purposes of the fund, and eligibility criteria). After two fruitless special sessions of the COFAP, in February 2006, the Conference of Heads of Government decided inter alia: (a) to establish the CDF as a capital fund with contributions by member states totalling US$120 million, of which US$100 million would be based on a contribution formula and US$20 million would come as a one-off contribution from the Petroleum Fund established by the Government of Trinidad and Tobago; (b) that an ultimate target of US$250 million be set for the CDF, with the difference between member states contributions and the ultimate target being sought from international financial institutions and other donor countries; (c) that a capitalization system should be the main, but not necessarily exclusive, basis 8

for the disbursement and operation of the CDF; (d) that the procedures and operational modalities for the management of the CDF be separate and apart from those pertaining to the normal functioning of those of the CDB. To date, initial grant contributions to the CDF amount to US$37 million-us$2.0 million from Barbados, US$5.0 million from Jamaica, US$10.0 million from Trinidad and Tobago, and US$20.0 million from the Petroleum Fund established by the Government of Trinidad and Tobago. US$63 million thus remains to be contributed by member states. And the projected US$130 million of grant contributions to be made by international financial institutions and donor countries (that is, additional to their current Development Assistance) is at the present time, pie in the sky. The following consequences of this decision may be expected: The CDF would be depleted in three to four years, if project approvals were to be at the expected rate - the US$120 million targeted, if realized, would have to be shared among twelve countries. This would then give rise to a new round of political pressures for replenishments from three principal ROC donors. The resources envisaged (whether US$120 million or US$250 million), would be a drop in the bucket of what would be required for any really effective program of structural transformation/ production restructuring in the twelve beneficiary countries, if any such program were in reality possible. As a grant program, given the fungibility of resources, it would be very difficult to ensure accountability for the dedicated use of the resources, and for discipline 9

in their effective deployment. As an institution separate and apart from, albeit housed on the CDB premises, managing financial resources of such a small size, and serving twelve beneficiary countries, its transactions cost as ratio of its annual business operations, would be wastefully high. Evidently then, CARICOM Heads of Government have determined that the economic cost of arrangements along these lines is out-weighed by their political benefits, especially the prospect of the OECS s defection from the CSME, an institution for which the Prime Minister of Barbados currently has responsibility; and possible damage to the close relationship that exists between the ECS and Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago. For the OECS itself, the apparent short-term benefit of grants from the CDF would be weighed against the possible pre-emption of longer-term development effectiveness, especially given doubts about the grant-related issues of fungibility and discipline, and of course of the sustainability of, and dependence on, support of this kind. Is there an Alternative? It would help to clear the air, and remove the brush from the way forward, if the rhetoric of production re-structuring/ structural transformation were converted to more realistic, pragmatic tasks. For the ECS and Belize, this would mean essentially a government directed program of support to the private sector to upgrade, technologically modernize, and expand the tourism sector and tourist-related products and services, that are now hopelessly uncompetitive vis-à-vis the Hispanic Caribbean; and in some areas 10

infrastructural and marketing support to agriculture. In Guyana, it would mean support of a comprehensive kind to get agriculture going as a regionally oriented enterprise. Much of the support therefore, to the beneficiary countries would need to be directed to the private sector. While grants generally would not be appropriate for such cases, a good case could be made for sufficiently subsidized loans and the kind of modalities that would make the use of CDF resources more than competitive with those obtainable, if they are at all, from private financial institutions. Thus, the CDF as a capital fund, that is, one that would use its capital endowment to finance grants mainly, and loans, would greatly limit the extent to which it could carry out the task described above. Its resources would shortly be depleted, and in respect of profit-earning activities, grant support would amount to a wasteful subsidy from regional public resources. Alternative approaches to a CDF were advanced by the CDB (2005), similar to ideas earlier developed by Brewster (2005), by which CDB resources, obtained through AAA borrowing on the international capital market, would be used to finance CDF-approved loans, while contributions to the CDF would be used to subsidize the interest rate on those loans. The CDF would thus be an interest rate subsidization fund for loans to the potential beneficiaries from the Ordinary Capital (OC) resources of the CDB; for grants, in certain cases, to needy, mostly public sector beneficiaries; and for technical assistance, especially through the proposed Regional Development Agency. This arrangement would enable a given volume of interest payments by countries to leverage a larger volume of capital borrowing for investment, thus also satisfying the requirement of additionality of available resources. 11

Since CDF resources would finance only the interest rate subsidization element, and to a lesser extent, grants, where appropriate, the Fund s resources would be sustainable over a much longer period of time than if its capital were used to finance loans/grants, while modest infusions of capital over time (and possibly small contributions from CDB s net income) it would not require capital replenishments as such. As loans, albeit with a heavily subsidized interest rate, this would help to minimize the moral hazard issues of fungibility and indiscipline. The CDB presented several scenarios along these lines. By way of an example, extending those scenarios to the present decision to establish the CDF as a capital fund, endowed with capital resources contributed by CARICOM governments of US$120 million, we arrive at the following results. Whereas those resources would be depleted by the twelve beneficiary countries in, say, four years, as an interest subsidization fund, offering a subsidy of 50 percent on normal OC terms, a Fund initially endowed with US$120 million could support subsidized lending of US$31 million each year for sixteen years, making a total loan volume of US$496, each loan carrying a 25-year maturity with a 5-year grace period on principal repayment. (The current CDB OC interest rate is 6.0 percent). Additional annual lending of this magnitude to eligible countries would in fact be an impressive achievement, representing an increment of some 30 to 40 percent over CDB s current average annual approvals to them. Indeed it could worsen the problem of absorptive capacity in those countries. While a time span as long as sixteen years should be adequate for the task as stated above to have been sufficiently achieved, and to permit exit from the arrangement. Other important advantages of this approach include that it would not require a new 12

organization, separate and apart with its own management, professional and administrative staff. That advantage, together with the use of common services in CDB, could represent a considerable saving for a small Fund. However, since CDB also has non-caricom membership, arrangements would be needed for a separate Board of Directors or Special Advisory Committee for the CDF which itself would also need to have its own Rules or Guidelines of Operation. These arrangements, including their governing instruments, bear some similarity to existing facilities in CDB such as the Special Development Fund (SDF), and to arrangements in other Multilateral Development Banks, such as the Fund for Special Operations (FSO), the Intermediate Financing Facility (IFF), and Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) in the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Bibliography La Corbiniere, B. Proposed CARICOM Development Fund for Disadvantaged Countries: Feasibility Assessment and Recommendations. Caribbean Development Bank, Wildey, Barbados, May 2005. Brewster, H.R. Sketch of a Proposal for a CARICOM Regional Development Fund. Washington D.C., December 2005. Caribbean Development Bank. Technical Team: Recommendations to the Council for Finance and Planning for Operationalising the Development Fund. Wildey, Barbados, January 2006. Caribbean Community Secretariat. Conclusions from the Second Special Meeting of the Council for Finance and Planning. Kingston, Jamaica, January 2006. 13

Caribbean Development Bank. Recommendations to the Third Special Meeting of the Council for Finance and Planning on the Operationalising of the Development Fund. Wildey, Barbados, April 2006. 14