JAMAICA-FINANCE-Jamaica working with international financial institutions on a number of initiatives.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) Wednesday said the Jamaica government is working with international financial institutions and donors to strengthen cooperation, crowd-in private investment and build climate resilience.

Kingston together with Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Green Climate Fund (GCF), the United Kingdom, and the European Investment Bank (EIB) as part of Team Europe, announced the collaborative approach to support a package aimed at enhancing the country's ability to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change.

Finance Minister Dr. Nigel Clarke (File Photo)

The support takes place in the context of the US$764 million Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) arrangement approved by the IMF in March 2023.

The RSF arrangement supports reforms to strengthen Jamaica's physical and fiscal resilience to climate change, advance decarbonization of the economy, and manage transition risks.

Reforms include the adoption of a disaster risk financing policy, the addition of climate requirements to the framework for public-private partnerships (PPPs), reforms of the fiscal framework, and incentives for investments in renewables and the greening of the financial system, aimed towards fostering investor confidence and catalyzing private climate financing.

These institutions, donors, as well as the World Bank, have been providing financial and technical support to support Jamaica's efforts to enhance its climate resilience.

'Jamaica's development will require significant and sustained infrastructure investment that outstrips the resource capacity of the government. We will therefore need to attract local and international private investment through structured transactions,' said Finance Minister Dr. Nigel Clarke.

'In addition, Jamaica's exposure to climate events makes it critical that such investments are climate smart and resilient. The costs of preparing projects, however, compete for scarce resources. In addition, accessing international climate finance for isolated investments often suffers from deficiencies of scale.

' For these reasons we are absolutely delighted that through close collaboration with our multilateral partners, the IMF, the IDB, the GCF and the EIB and bilateral partners, the UK and the EU, today we announce a three-prong approach, that will catalyze new and larger amounts of private finance that boosts Jamaica's climate smart development.'

Clarke said that this includes: an innovative Project...