PARIS, France – Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley Friday held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron on the need for a fairer international system that addresses the finance needs of developing countries and which invests collectively in a just ecological transition worldwide.
French President Emanuel Macron greeting Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley in Paris on Friday (Photo courtesy PMO)A statement issued following the meeting and sent to the Barbados-based Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) noted the “increasingly strong friendship and partnership” between the countries and that in recent months have seen a joint event; during COP27, a first French ministerial visit to Barbados, and this visit to Paris by the Prime Minister.
The statement said that President Macron and Mottley discussed the preparation of the Summit for a New Global Financial Pact, planned for June 22-23 in Paris.
“They agreed to continue their close cooperation to prepare this decisive Summit, which seeks to lay the foundations of a more responsive, just and inclusive international financial system.
“The two leaders underlined the importance of this event for the bringing together of views across continents, including diverse actors from civil society and the private sectors, and for building a new pact on tangible solutions that will finance the fight against poverty and inequalities and for the climate transition.”
It said the two leaders discussed the “first promising proposed solution, which builds on solutions both initiated by France and advanced by the G20 in recent years and the ambitious and innovative proposals of the Bridgetown Initiative, led by Barbados.
The Bridgetown Initiative is a proposal to reform the world of development finance, particularly how rich countries help poor countries cope with and adapt to climate change.
Barbados sets out three key steps in the Bridgetown Initiative. The first involves changing some of the terms around how funding is loaned and repaid. The aim is to stop developing nations spiraling into a debt crisis when their borrowing is forced up by successive disasters like floods, droughts and storms.
The statement said the “aim is to address urgent liquidity needs through the greater sharing of IMF (International Monetary Fund) Special Drawing Rights, enlarged access to rapid credit facilities, more sustainable debt treatment, generation of the investment needed for greater economic and social resilience and the just transition to a low carbon world”
It said the two leaders “strongly support a substantial increase in lending by the World Bank and other multilateral development banks, a far greater direction of private capital to developing countries, through new instruments and debt sustainability rules that better fit the global realities of the 21st century.
“Separately, the two leaders reiterated the importance of removing obstacles to and strengthening the regional integration of the French communities in the Caribbean – Guiana, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint Martin and Saint Barthélemy –contributing to the whole region’s development,” the statement added.
