Prime Minister Dr. the Hon. Godwin Friday has outlined some of the issues being discussed at this week’s World Bank meetings.

Speaking during an interview with Television Caribbean, Prime Minister Friday noted that discussions examined common problems affecting project implementation and the experience of Small Island Developing States.

He said the issues discussed included human capacity and the need for improved coordination among various agencies.

The Prime Minister stated: "The same people who you call upon to do disaster response or to implement regular projects and so forth, are also working with the World Bank projects and they are, in a sense, multitasking. You have a small team; if a key member is absent or somebody gets moved or promoted or goes to a different job, it slows down the project. The monitoring of projects across different projects here and there—you have different monitoring agencies—it's better to try and coordinate them to see where there are common issues and common problems, and to solve them as a team or a group rather than having them being dealt with separately. Coordinating with the international lending agencies, the World Bank and so forth, makes sure that our timelines, when they are set, they are reasonably set. We have regular quarterly monitoring procedures so that things are kept moving; I think that's what we heard from here because it is a commitment we heard from President Ajay Banga that the bank wants to be able to reduce the implementation time for projects considerably, and that's music to our ears because that's what we want to see as countries that are looking for projects that will enhance our development."

The 2026 Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group are being held from October 12 to 18 in Bangkok, Thailand.

The Prime Minister is leading this country’s delegation to the meetings.

SOURCE: National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC Radio)