According to Deputy Director of Finance, Alison Griffith-McDiarmed, the accreditation directly supports the Medium-Term Development Strategy (2021–2026) and the National Adaptation Plan (2018–2023) by unlocking new financing streams for priority climate resilience projects.

“It enables us to get direct access to things which otherwise would be a bit challenging for the government. Of course, we don’t want to go to the bonds, and you don’t want any more taxes,” she explained.

Griffith-McDiarmed noted that the benefits go far beyond repairing physical damage after extreme weather events.

“When we have a climate change or a climate event happening, it’s not about just the physical resources getting damaged. We need to find homes for persons who otherwise would not have… our vulnerable, which… is not just women and children, we do have men who are vulnerable,” she said.

She also emphasised that the GCF accreditation will reduce Saint Lucia’s dependency on external intermediaries like the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB), or the Organisation of American States (OAS), organisations that often handle large-scale financing but may overlook smaller, locally-driven projects.

“If we go through the Saint Lucia Development Bank, we are now able to foster that,” Griffith-McDiarmed explained.

By cutting out layers of bureaucracy, the SLDB can now access funding more quickly, ensuring that urgent adaptation initiatives, many of which were once difficult to finance, can move up the national priority list.