Grenada

Grenada, in the eastern Caribbean, consists of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands, with a total population of around 105,000.

In total, DFID has allocated £75 million for the Caribbean from 2011 until 2015.  As part of this, Grenada will benefit from our regional programmes to help the Caribbean prepare and reduce the risk from climate change and disasters. Most people in the Caribbean live close to the coast, vulnerable to the threats of storms, flooding and rising sea levels. DFID is helping vulnerable people to be better prepared and equipped to withstand these threats, which are expected to get worse. Grenada is highly prone to natural disasters - in 2004, damage from Hurricane Ivan was more than 253% of the country's income that year. We are also developing affordable insurance for small businesses and farmers, to protect their assets and livelihoods when disaster strikes. 

We are helping governments in the Caribbean region to plan ahead for possible disasters and to integrate risk reduction into their policy and investment decisions, for example through a climate change risk atlas for Grenada's tourism sector and an economic impact assessment of climate change on the water sector. Knowing what problems they face will make it easier for them to make a case for action, mobilise resources to scale up their efforts and ensure development gains are not lost.

The UK is also a major contributor to the global Pilot Programme on Climate Change which has allocated around £40 million to develop climate resilience programmes for Grenada and five other Caribbean countries.  

In line with its aim of reducing poverty, DFID is also contributing from its regional budget to three major programmes designed to create jobs and increase exports across the Caribbean:

• £10 million for the COMPETE Caribbean scheme, delivered jointly with the Inter-American Development Bank and the Canadian International Development Agency, which will reduce red tape, streamline regulation, and help local firms break into new markets
• £10 million for CARTFund, a special fund to help Caribbean countries and their own regional integration initiative, CSME (the CARICOM Single Market and Economy) take advantage of a trade deal with the European Union.  CARTFund helps in testing for product standards and provides support to the tourism, speciality foods and accounting sectors
• £4 million contribution to CARTAC, the IMF regional technical assistance mission. This provides advice and training for all English-speaking countries in macroeconomic management, monetary and taxation policy, statistics and debt management.

Under CARTFund, we are helping public agencies put legislation in place to implement the trade agreement with Europe, as well as helping the private sector to understand the agreement so that they can capitalise on opportunities to export more to Europe and get more investment

Grenada's financial sector also benefits from DFID's £600,000 contribution to the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, to help it regulate the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union. 

In common with the rest of the Caribbean, Grenada suffers from the effects of organised crime. We are training and equipping law enforcement agencies, courts and special intelligence units in the eastern Caribbean to investigate organised crime, confiscate criminal assets and reduce money laundering.

The UK also contributes to multilateral organisations that carry out a wide range of projects and programmes in Grenada. Such contributions from the UK amounted to £745,000 in 2010/11.