Georgetown: Guyana has been the largest recipient of the Caribbean Development Bank’s (CDB) Special Development Funding, accessing US$165M in loans from 1970 to 2012.
CDB President, Dr. William Warren Smith made these remarks recently at the launch of the seventh cycle of the Guyana leg of the Basic Needs Trust Fund (BNTF).
The BNTF is a targeted poverty reduction programme of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) with Guyana and nine other Caricom countries. With US$6.1M funding from the bank and the Guyana Government’s US$1M contribution, the total programme size of the project is US$7.1M.
The current BNTF cycle will seek to further equip and empower people to become financially independent. “We will build on the work carried out in the previous cycles of BNTF to reduce the skills gap, empowering people not only to seek employment but to develop their own businesses,” he said.
CDB has occupied a special place in the Caribbean region’s landscape, since it has made its mark in delivering an extremely valuable contribution, which is very evident in Guyana, and that it has established its worth as a reliable development partner.
To date, there have been six replenishments of the BNTF. The seventh BNTF cycle started in 2012 and has three key development priorities: Education and Human Resources Development; Water and Sanitation and Community Access Roads and Drainage
He said hundreds of students attend classes at the technical institutes, where they are acquiring skills in preparation for the world of work while thousands of other Guyanese also supply skills to the business sector.
