Bahamian hoping to become Caribbean Development Bank president

Bahamian Therese Turner-Jones is running for the presidency of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), after one year as the bank’s vice president of operations, and following nine years at the Caribbean desk of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). If successful in her bid next month, Turner-Jones would be the first Bahamian and the first woman to lead the bank. An economist, Turner-Jones has been a leading voice on the state of the Caribbean economy and its individual economies, and an important voice for change on aspects of The Bahamas’ economy.

She told Guardian Business that she hopes to bring agility to the CDB, in order to ensure the bank is meeting its clients’ needs in a timely manner. “One of the biggest criticisms of organizations like the CDB, is that we take too long to get things done,” said Turner-Jones. “You know, you apply for a loan today and maybe six months, nine months later, it’s just being approved by the board.



“In today’s world that’s too long. We want to be able to deliver things faster. We want to be able to be more responsive to clients by streamlining processes, becoming less bureaucratic, more responsive, and also having a more interesting set of products, financial products, that our countries need to help them build resilience, whether financial resilience, or any other kind of resilience.

” At the IDB, Turner-Jones helped The Bahamas to improve its ease of doing business, through the digitization of government processes. She said she sees this same kind of efficiency movement for the CDB as important for its transition to a relevant institution for today’s Caribbean economies. “The bank needs to be modernized.

It needs to become relevant to the needs of the Caribbean in 2024,” said Turner-Jones. “I’m thinking of issues like climate change, education, citizen security, issues that the bank can address to help meet development needs. “If you even take a metric like the Sustainable Development Goals, the Caribbean is at risk of not meeting those goals by 2030.

I think we are on track to meet only one, and that’s the one related to primary school enrollment. All the others we’re basically not going to hit. “Now, of course, there’s variation across the 19 countries, but if we’re talking about the region at large, we are falling behind as middle income and high income countries in the Caribbean.

” She said leadership at the highest level of the bank is needed to focus its resources and build programs for countries that will take them into the future. According to Turner-Jones, the CDB is undercapitalized and in need of a liquidity boost in order to fully meet the needs of its clients. The previous president of the Caribbean CDB President Dr.

Hyginus Leon was sent on administrative leave earlier this year and later resigned his seat. Turner-Jones will know if she is successful in her presidency bid when the board makes its decision next month. If successful, she will oversee a development bank where The Bahamas is one of the largest shareholders and the biggest borrower.

She said her time at the IDB has taught her important lessons that she will bring to the top seat of the CDB. “I’m very big on transforming lives, because I know that it works,” she said. “I worked at the Caribbean department of the IDB at a time when the countries didn’t really engage very well with the IDB.

And I wondered, why was that? The IDB has a lot of resources. It has offices in all six countries it operates in. This is the one advantage, the big advantage it has over CDB.

“I think it’s a big disadvantage for CDB, because you’re removed from the client. But having field offices in each of the countries that the IDB is operating puts you in a position to get to know your clients better. “Being in close contact with the finance minister, the public works minister, whomever you’re working with, you can transfer knowledge more quickly when you’re right there.

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