PROJECT DEVELOPMENT ASSISTANCE

Participating countries will include Antigua, St. Kitts/Nevis, Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Barbados, and Montserrat. Project areas will emphasize agribusiness, industrial and energy development, and related public infrastructure improvement. A 6-person team to provide long-term development planning assistance will be established and provided with orientation training. Each planner will reside in a specific country and will be assigned to its government. His/her responsibilities will be to: 1) identify, select, and design employment-generating projects; 2) identify and assist in acquiring technical and funding resources, including those from other donor programs; 3) design scopes of work for needed research studies; 4) provide project monitoring and ongoing administrative support; and 5) cooperate with regional agencies in outlining country training and administration needs and in linking counterpart personnel with those agencies. Planners will initiate at least five projects in each country (except in Montserrat where there will be two) and will make efforts to improve the linkages between the public and private sectors in project implementation. Short-term TA (to be funded as much as possible from outside sources) will be provided to conduct three sector and three policy studies. These studies will enhance the qualitative basis of development planning and will complement efforts of the Caribbean Group. Also, a system will be set up for the exchange of project development and management information among the participating countries. An investor search function will be provided to match selected projects with possible U.S. investment sources. At least four projects will be implemented in this manner.