Caribbean must address structural vulnerabilities CDB Economists warn

Published on June 29, 2026

The Caribbean faces a growing wave of geopolitical, economic, and climaterelated shocks, but the Region’s greatest challenge may be the structural vulnerabilities that leave its economies exposed to external crises.

This was the key message emerging from “Shockwaves: How Global Crises Are Hitting the Caribbean”, a special EDGE X by CDB: Analytics Unlocked session held during the Caribbean Development Bank’s 56th Annual Meeting in Nassau, The Bahamas.

Dr. Oronde Small and Mr. Xavier Ajani Malcolm, Economists at the Caribbean Development Bank, examined how overlapping global disruptions – including shifting trade policies, geopolitical conflicts, climate change, declining development assistance, and multilateral fragmentation – are affecting Caribbean economies and what policymakers can do to strengthen resilience.

The Caribbean is confronting not one crisis, but a confluence of overlapping and compounding shocks, Mr. Malcolm explained, pointing to the risk of climate-related disasters, an America-first trade policy, fragmented multilateralism, the conflict in Iran, the U.S. military intervention in Venezuela and the Caribbean, and the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Cuba.