Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley officially launched version 3.0 of the Bridgetown Initiative on the reform of the International Development and Climate Finance Architecture, during the 79th United Nations General Assembly in New York, United States of America.
Ms. Mottley stated, during her wide-ranging address to the Assembly last Friday, that the blueprint was hinged on three key principles.
She noted: “Firstly, we must change the rules of the international financial system and reform its governance and instruments; we must shockproof vulnerable economies by dealing with debt and liquidity in a comprehensive development-focused manner and if we need to give countries a shot of liquidity like we give them a shot of adrenalin to avoid them falling off the cliff of debt, then we must do so.
“Thirdly, we must augment financing by boosting country capacity to invest in resilience by several means, including what has been announced already, the re-channeling of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) through multilateral partners. That will truly be effective if there is another issuance of SDRs in the near future.”
In the Bridgetown Initiative, which was unveiled in 2022, Ms. Mottley said it has helped to lead a paradigm shift in the discourse on “scaling capital flows and reshaping the financing system to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and spur climate action.
“The Bridgetown Initiative is not a dialogue about numbers, but an agenda for lives of dignity for billions of people across the globe,” she said.