LatinNews Daily - 09 June 2023

* During a visit to The Bahamas, which is currently the chair of the Caribbean Community (Caricom), US Vice President Kamala Harris has highlighted over US$100m, including US$98m in new funding from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), to address climate, energy, food security, and humanitarian assistance in the Caribbean. During her trip, Harris co-hosted the US-Caribbean Leaders Meeting, alongside Prime Minister Philip Davis of The Bahamas. According to a USAID press release, the agency intends to provide US$20m in funding to companies with financial and technical assistance and business development services through the Caribbean Climate Investment Programme. It says that the programme will also support the establishment of the Blue-Green Investment Corporation in partnership with the Barbados government, the Green Climate Fund, and private sector investors. According to the same press release, USAID is also providing nearly US$15m to support disaster risk reduction, emergency response capacity strengthening, and resilience building across the Caribbean, funding which will bring total investment by USAID in disaster risk reduction and resilience building in the Caribbean to over US$80m over the past five years. The US government also announced plans to provide US$10.5m to Haiti to enhance resilience and productivity in the country’s agricultural and livestock sector and an additional amount of nearly US$54m in response to the country’s humanitarian crisis, noting that this brings USAID’s total FY 2023 funding for humanitarian response activities in Haiti to over US$110m.