The Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) has approved a three million US dollar grant to cover Haiti’s 2018-2019 insurance premiums with the Cayman islands-based Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility Segregated Portfolio Company (CCRIF SPC).
CCRIF- SPC provides parametric insurance coverage to the Caribbean and Latin America and the CDB said that its funding will help Haiti meet the cost of the premiums for tropical cyclone, earthquake and excess rainfall coverage to which the Haitian government will contribute up to US$1.8 million.
Most vulnerable to natural hazards
“A large percentage of the population of Haiti is exposed to multiple hazards, due to climate change, the rapid growth of unplanned settlements, and ecosystem degradation and decline,” said the CDB’s Director of Projects, Daniel Best, who also noted that among the bank’s 19 Borrowing Member Countries (BMC), Haiti is one of the most vulnerable to natural hazards.
The CDB said that given Haiti’s fragility and high vulnerability to natural hazards, in its 2017-2021 Country Strategy for Haiti, the lending institution committed to continue paying the country’s annual CCRIF SPC premiums.
“Further, in the most recent negotiations for the replenishment of the Bank’s Special Development Fund, contributors agreed that there should be a continuation of the grant-supported programme of assistance for Haiti. Disaster risk reduction is among the main areas in which CDB will invest,” the CDB added.
