Regional Program Evaluation of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States

Abstract

The six independent members of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS)— Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines—face major development challenges and vulnerabilities. Their small size entails diseconomies of small scale in infrastructure, institutions, and markets. They are highly vulnerable to natural disasters, especially hurricanes, and to climate change. Their open but undiversified economies expose them to shocks. Tourism, now the dominant activity, faces eroding competitiveness and a loss of market share. A vicious circle has prevailed of low growth, high debt levels from weak public finances, and frequent shocks. During the FY06–14 evaluation period, the World Bank Group engaged with the OECS on two pillars of development: strengthening resilience and improving competitiveness. Program design was relevant and had laudable attributes, such as a good instrument mix in several cases, support for regional solutions with a strong economic rationale, flexibility to address risk, effective use of partnerships, and provision to confront capacity constraints. Bank Group program objectives however, were broad-ranging, involving many sectors and numerous activities. Greater selectivity would have allowed greater consistency and continuity of Bank support in priority areas, likely bringing better results. This evaluation rates the program’s progress toward achieving its objectives during FY06–14 as moderately satisfactory. Bank Group support helped strengthen areas such as fiscal and debt management, disaster risk management, social resilience, and the financial sector in the wake of the 2008–09 global crisis. A particularly important contribution drew on the Bank’s comparative advantage to help overcome a market failure through the establishment of a self-supporting, sustainable insurance mechanism against disaster events, the Caribbean Catastrophic Risk Insurance Facility. Looking ahead, it will be necessary to ensure selectivity and specificity in the objectives of new Bank lending, and simplicity and flexibility in its design, with appropriate provision for the institutional capacity that it requires. The Bank Group should also continue supporting OECS-wide development solutions, but only where the economic rationale and support among country stakeholders are strong. It should also continue consolidating its portfolio of activities, ensuring complementarity within clusters of lending and nonlending products, and seek to strengthen and showcase collaboration by the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation.