PM Davis at CBD Meeting: “we are the place where the caribbean comes to forge the future”

During his Official Remarks at the Opening Ceremony of 56th Annual Meeting of

the Board of Governors of the Caribbean Development Bank, on June 3, 2026,

Prime Minister the Hon. Philip Davis welcomed all those in attendance to The

Bahamas, adding that they had come to a nation that saw that bank as “one of

our own”.

“It was built by our region,” he said, at the event held at Baha Mar Convention

Centre. “It answers to our region. It carries the purpose of our region.”

Among those present were Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education,

Science and Technology the Hon. Chester Cooper; President of the Caribbean

Development Bank Daniel Best; Chairman of the Board of Governors and

Minister of Finance, the Hon. Michael Halkitis; Governors and Ministers of

Finance; Minister of Economic Affairs Senator the Hon. Jerome Fitzgerald;

Heads of Delegation; Senator and Attorney General & Minister of Legal Affairs

Senator the Hon. Wayne Munroe; Permanent Secretaries and other senior Government

officials; members of the Diplomatic Corps; and regional and international

stakeholders and young people.

Prime Minister Davis added: “We have called this gathering ‘Forging the Caribbean’s

Future’. It is a strong theme; but we should be honest from the start,

because honesty is the only foundation that holds. You cannot forge a future

with borrowed fire.”

He pointed out that the world, as it was, had grown smaller, not larger. Capital

that once moved freely “now hesitates at our shores”.

Prime Minister Davis said: “Our banks lose correspondent relationships, and

our businesses are cut away from a financial system the rest of the world takes

for granted. We are told, often at the same time, that we are too small to matter,

on the one hand, and too prosperous to be helped, on the other.

“A single storm can erase a year of our national income in one night,” he added.

“That same storm can disqualify us from the financing we need to recover,

because a formula written in a distant capital has decided that we are ineligible

because we have graduated.

“Let me say in the sincerest terms. We do not feel like graduates when the seas

around us are rising.”

Prime Minister Davis noted that climate finance, when it arrives. comes late; and

too often, it “comes as a debt burden of our state”.

“So we rebuild,” be stated. “We borrow to rebuild; and the debt we carry crowds

out the schools, the clinics, and the ability to invest in other oppo1tunities we

owe our people.”

Prime Minister Davis added: “This is the world as it is. You know it. Tam here

to name it honestly, because no lasting progress is built on a borrowed truth. We

also have to be honest about ourselves.”

He said that, for too long, they had treated endurance like achievement.

“We have survived hurricanes and pandemics, debt and downturns, and we have

called that strength,” Prime Minister Davis stated. “It is strength; but this

morning, J must say the harder thing.”

“So we rebuild,” he stated. “We borrow to rebuild; and the debt we cany crowds

out the schools, the clinics, and the ability to invest in other oppo1tunities we

owe our people.”

Prime Minister Davis added: “This is the world as it is. You know it. I am here

to name it honestly, because no lasting progress is built on a borrowed truth. We

also have to be honest about ourselves.”

He said that, for too long, they had treated endurance like achievement.

“We have survived hurricanes and pandemics, debt and downturns, and we have

called that strength,” Prime Minister Davis stated. “It is strength; but this

morning, I must say the harder thing.”

He continued: “We have been resilient for so long that we have begun to mistake

survival for progress. Surviving the storm is different from changing the conditions

that create it. Enduring the old order is different from building a better

one. A region that learns only to survive will be asked to survive again, and

again, and again, until survival is the only thing it knows how to do. And J say

‘we’ without exception, because The Bahamas lives with this same reality. We,

too, have lived as tenants in a house we did not build, following rules drafted in

rooms where we had no seat.

“I am here as a leader who believes the time to build has a1Tived.”