Greenidge highlights shared struggles and Barbados's recovery efforts

In May 2018, Barbados faced severe economic distress, with public debt reaching 179 percent of GDP and international reserves covering barely four weeks of imports.

The government responded with the homegrown Barbados Economic Recovery and Transformation Plan (BERT), a reform program supported by the IMF's Extended Fund Facility.

BERT's first phase, 'Stopping the Bleeding,' focused on restoring fiscal stability rapidly.

Within two years, the primary balance shifted from a 3.5 percent GDP deficit to a 6 percent surplus.

The entire public debt was restructured, reducing debt service costs by approximately 600 million Barbados dollars annually.

Crucially, social spending on health, education, and social protection was ring-fenced, shifting the adjustment burden away from vulnerable households.

This approach, supported by the Social Partnership, ensured the program's legitimacy and durability through seven IMF reviews, a pandemic, and natural disasters.

As Governor Greenidge noted, 'fiscal discipline is not austerity for its own sake. It is the creation of policy space.'

The second phase, BERT 2022, focused on building resilience and transformation.

Barbados secured an IMF Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) arrangement, providing approximately 189 million US dollars in long-term climate financing.

This required embedding climate considerations into policy frameworks, including budget documentation and new legislation for flood resilience and energy reform.

The Central Bank of Barbados adopted a formal climate strategy.

Barbados also pioneered financial instruments, embedding natural disaster and pandemic clauses into new bonds during its 2018–19 debt restructuring.

The nation completed a debt-for-nature swap and the world's first debt-for-climate-resilience operation, unlocking adaptation financing without increasing sovereign debt burden.

This innovative model is championed globally by the Bridgetown Initiative.