Weekly column
The Bridgetown Brief.
A short weekly dispatch on what is moving in Caribbean economies, fiscal policy, and the long view. Plain enough for the general reader, substantive enough for the practitioner. Every issue, in order.
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The Bridgetown Brief.
A short weekly column on Caribbean economies, fiscal policy, and the long view. Read it here, or have it land in your inbox. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Issue№ 14
The Storm That Never Lands
The July drought bulletin from the region's climate centre puts Barbados on drought watch and warns that a strong El Niño could carry rainfall deficits into the 2026 to 2027 dry season. Last week this column looked at insuring the sudden shock. Drought is the other kind of disaster. No landfall date, no parametric trigger, no payout. It arrives as a slow rise in the food bill and the water utility's costs. It is the fiscal risk a budget is least equipped to see coming.
Issue№ 13
The Cover and the Loss
The Fifty-First CARICOM summit closed in Gros Islet with the expected headlines on integration and reparations. Its most consequential economic decision was quieter: a Regional Insurance and Reinsurance Strategy, and a task force to build it, as un-insurance rises across the region and the storms intensify. Beryl cost Grenada more than a sixth of its economy in 2024. For the Caribbean, insurance is fiscal policy. The question is whether the strategy becomes a fund before the next storm, or stays a task force.
Issue№ 12
The Table and the Ledger
On Sunday 5 July the region's leaders gathered in Gros Islet for the 51st CARICOM Heads of Government Meeting. The communiqué will be written in the first person plural. The members signing it do not share a balance sheet: Barbados carries debt at 94.6 per cent of GDP, Trinidad public sector debt at 84.2 per cent, Jamaica near 68 per cent. Same table. Different arithmetic.
Issue№ 11
The Caribbean Minus One
At its 56th Annual Meeting the Caribbean Development Bank reported regional growth, excluding Guyana, of just 0.6 per cent in 2025. Put Guyana's oil back in and the same region grew 4.7 per cent. One country now sets the regional average by itself. The blended figure flatters a Caribbean that is mostly standing still, and lenders calibrate their support to it.
Issue№ 10
The Arrangement You Hope Not to Use
On 22 June 2026 the IMF Executive Board approved a 36-month precautionary Stand-By Arrangement for Barbados, SDR 189 million or about US$257 million, and the government has said it does not intend to draw a cent. A precautionary line is insurance bought from strength, not a lifeline. Set against Jamaica after Hurricane Melissa and Trinidad and Tobago, it shows what a decade of consolidation actually purchases.
Issue№ 09
The Food Bill and the Deal Book
On Tuesday 16 June 2026 the United Nations launched a Deal Book of US$320 million in investment-ready Caribbean food projects in Bridgetown. The region imports roughly 60 per cent of its food and CARICOM puts the annual bill above US$6 billion. The pipeline is small against the bill. The gap between them is a financing problem, and for Barbados a balance-of-payments one.
Issue№ 08
The Shock and the Strategy
The Caribbean Development Bank held its 56th Annual Meeting in Nassau from 1 to 5 June 2026. Two documents arrived in the same week. The new Strategic Plan 2026 to 2035 sets a ten-year direction. The Caribbean Economic Review and Outlook reports 2025 regional growth of 0.6 per cent excluding Guyana. The plan and the print belong on the same page.
Issue№ 07
The Third Arrangement
On 14 May 2026, the IMF announced a staff-level agreement on a 36-month precautionary Stand-By Arrangement for Barbados, providing access to SDR 189 million should it be needed. What a precautionary arrangement actually signals, and what it means for the rest of the Caribbean, is the more important story.
Issue№ 06
Surplus and Arrears, in the Same Year
Antigua and Barbuda ran a 2025 primary surplus near 5 per cent of GDP. The same staff report flagged significant arrears to Paris Club creditors and domestic suppliers. Both sentences are true. They describe the same fiscal year. The instrument that holds them together is the Citizenship-by-Investment programme, and the same instrument tells the opposite story in Saint Kitts and Nevis.
Issue№ 05
After the Storm, and Before One
Total investment in the Caribbean averaged 28 per cent of regional GDP in 2023, above both OECD and Latin American averages. The OECD and IDB say the figure is misleading. What is driving it, and what it is actually building, tells a different story.
Issue№ 04
The Floor Beneath the Figures
On 20 April 2026, 54,300 Barbadians received the first payment under the Cost of Living Cash Credit. The monthly $100 transfer is the social dimension of BERT 2026. The quarterly review on 29 April will show the GDP line. The 54,300 payments processed show something the GDP line does not.
Issue№ 03
The Price of Discipline
Within six days, the Central Bank of Barbados made two announcements that say more about the economy than either one does on its own. Fiscal discipline without credit access is austerity by another name; with it, it is a strategy that can hold.
Issue№ 02
When Tourism Is the Weather
Fitch says Barbados’ fiscal trajectory is improving. It also says the tourism base underneath is not. Cruise arrivals are up 9.6 per cent; stay-overs only 3.3. Volume has outpaced value. When Fitch flags tourism, it is flagging the ground everything else is standing on.
Issue№ 01
The Gap Between January and April
On 16 April 2026, ahead of the IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings, Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told reporters that “even our most hopeful scenario involves a growth downgrade.” The next day, the Fund’s World Economic Outlook confirmed the shape.