Financing through concessional loans from the Petrocaribe Energy Cooperation Agreement with Venezuela is also helping to buffer the impact of high oil prices for some Caribbean countries. Nonetheless, there are concerns about the capacity of these countries to repay the debt that is building up from the Petrocaribe agreement. Remittances have become a fairly stable source of non-traditional external financing for many Caribbean countries.
Studies by the World Bank, the central banks of the Netherlands, France, Malaysia and Mexico and others, and the study by the Network for Greening the Financial System – that is our partnership of 116 central banks and international organisations – recently concluded that biodiversity loss is a source of financial risks and could affect financial stability. Creating awareness, that is step one.