Hands off the climate change funds!

With a directness that would not have escaped the attention of governments in the region, Caribbean Development Bank President Dr. Jean Leon used the occasion of the Tuesday December 7th start of the Second Annual Caribbean Conference on Corruption, Compliance and Cybercrime to issue a robust caution Caribbean governments about the consequences that can accrue from the misuse of funds expected to accrue to the region for the purpose of mitigating what could well be the serious Climate Change impact which some countries in the region are likely to have to confront in the period ahead.

Evidently intending that there be no mistaking his concern over the possibility that funds assigned to the region for climate change mitigation may be officially redirected and that such redirection might elicit unpalatable responses from donor institutions, the CDB President appeared to be in no mood to pull punches.

In a presentation that could seemed to be particularly intended to cause regional Heads of Government to sit up in their chairs, Dr. Leon bluntly asserted that “the sizeable financing required to address infrastructural and economic vulnerabilities and to recover from shocks may also present opportunities for corruption.” There could be no misunderstanding that point that he was seeking to make.

But the CDB boss did not stop there. He choose, as well to warn regional governments that indiscretions in the management of climate funds that might be linked to profligacy, misallocation or blatant stealing might well be met with frowns of disapproval that may metamorphose into a drying up of those funds and by extension injuring the region’s climate mitigation pursuits.

It is hardly by accident, one feels, that the second annual Caribbean Conference on Corruption, Compliance, and Cybercrime held earlier this month was held under the theme “ending Poverty and Driving Growth: Promoting Good Governance by

Curbing Corruption, Money Laundering and Cybercrime in the Caribbean.” The theme makes two points; first that the malpractices, including corruption-related crimes listed in the theme are prevalent in the Caribbean; secondly that the available evidence suggests that there are instances (how many of them we do not know) in which presumably trusted functionaries charged with protecting the interest of the state are not just failing in their substantive responsibilities but may be part and parcel of corruption-related transgressions that diminish those resources.

How to realize the elevation of good governance to standard practice for regional institutions, including governments, is a conundrum which the Caribbean, as a whole, is still some distance away from getting around. Here in the region it is still widely felt that the accession to political office opens a gateway to channeling public funds into private pursuits. Across the region, arguably in some countries more than others, not a great deal has happened over the years to change the collective public mind on that score. The irony of all this is that when the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) adopted the UN Convention Against Corruption on 31 October 2003 (the Convention actually came into effect in 2005) it became and still is “the only legally binding universal anti-corruption instrument.” Here it has to be said that it may well be decidedly revealing to scrutinize, even less than carefully, the track records of some of the signatories.

Going forward, it would be interesting to see whether the robust anti-corruption sentiments expressed by the CDB’s President a matter of days ago will secure any traction in a region where those who hold office and who are, simultaneously, bent on corruption-driven abuse of that office, may well remain indifferent. At least, however, the CDB President has done his job. His warning can hardly be clearer.