Agricultural and small business to benefit from 9th Cycle of BNTF.

DPI, Guyana, Monday, October 09, 2017

The agricultural and small business sectors in Guyana are expected to be the main beneficiaries of the 9^th cycle of the Basic Needs Trust Fund (BNTF), which was officially launched on Monday by Finance Minister Winston Jordan.

BNTF is the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB)’s flagship poverty reduction program which supports intentions such as basic community access to water, sanitation and drainage, education and human resource development.

Minister Jordan said the grants will continue to be assigned to projects “that contribute to poverty reduction through intensive and sustainable economic growth.” This is the main objective of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) as well as the strategic thrust of the administration.

According to Bernard Lord, Chairman of the Oversight Unit of the Basic Needs Trust Fund,  the project is worth $7.3M, with US$6.1 M coming from the CDB and US$1.2M from Government Counterpart Financing.

The last cycle benefitted several individuals and organisations, one such association is the Guyana Society for the Blind.

Representative of the Guyana Society for the Blind, Ganesh Singh said his organisation, with assistance from the BNTF, was able to acquire equipment benefitting blind students and enabling them to write the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate examination. “With all of this we’ve had 30 students completing CXC and those are students without our intervention and the support of the BNTF would have been at home and not having a future” he noted.

The CDB’s BNTF began in 1979, however, Guyana only started benefitting in 1993, but has since been an exemplary partner.

Guyana has been the leading performer acquiring the largest number of grants and has implemented the largest number of sub-projects. To date, Guyana has received grant funding of USD$30.1 Million.

 

By: Natasha Smith