Working Capital Development Consultation

SME-DFI Working Capital Development Consultation - Barbados

Component 3, in collaboration with the CARICOM Business Development Thematic Group, will seek to arrive at a road map for establishing a Regional Fund to support working capital requirements of SMEs in specific commodity/industry chains, particularly those impacting women and youth producers.

An article dated 01 October 2015 by Deodat Maharaj, Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-general for Economic and Social development at the Commonwealth Secretariat reinforces the relevance and level of importance of the issue of innovative financing for development, and by extension for the agricultural sector in the Caribbean region.

Participation, by invitation, is targeted at strategic organizations such as the Caribbean Export (located in Barbados), as well as CABA and key local and regional small & medium agro-processors and who have been advocating for such a fund.

The Intra-ACP Agricultural Policy Programme (APP) is a broad technical cooperation framework focusing on two regions: the Caribbean and the Pacific. The programme supports the reduction and eradication of poverty in the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries through sustainable development and successful integration of enterprises in these economies into national, regional and, where appropriate, global markets.

The Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) is the Executing Agency for the Caribbean Action, which is being implemented in partnership with the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI) and the CARICOM Secretariat (CCS). The Caribbean Action, which comprises three Components:

• Component 1: Regional Agricultural Development Policies and Strategies (CCS);
• Component 2: Applied Agricultural Production and Processing Research and Technologies (CARDI)
• Component 3: Agricultural Enterprise Development through Market Linkages (IICA), will terminate at the end of the implementation period in December 2016.

The Directorate of the Caribbean Forum of ACP states (CARIFORUM) will closely monitor implementation at the regional and national levels and conduct annual overall Progamme Steering Committee (PSC) Meetings.