CFC briefs GRULAC Regional Group in The Hague virtually
GRULAC has been an inspiration for all practitioners of development. As such, the CFC requested member states of the GRULAC regional group to share their best practices for their scaling up in different parts of the world. Ambassador Arnoldo Brenes Castro of Costa Rica welcomed Ambassador Sheikh Mohammed Belal and his colleagues to this first ever briefing on the status and future programs of the CFC. During the briefing, Ambassador Sheikh Mohammed Belal urged all members of this august club to join the CFC and thereby enable the CFC to implement projects in their countries as well. While highlighting the challenges of and lessons from COVID-19, the Managing Director of the CFC thanked the member states belonging to GRULAC group for their leadership in arranging emergency support measures titled "Emergency Liquidity Facility" and flexible repayment schedules for those businesses who are in distress and as such applied for help. As we are not done with the pandemic yet, Ambassador Belal urged all to pay greater attention to the vulnerable communities so that they can continue to feed themselves while keeping gainfully engaged.
Ambassador Belal also offered the CFC services so that SMEs and smallholders in their region also gain from CFC services. The CFC's MD also updated the group about ongoing measures to bring more innovations and creativity in the spheres of project implementations in the CFC. With our base in a country as innovative as the Netherlands, we strive our best to make our interventions based on innovations and creativity.
Ambassador Belal urged all member states in the Group to disseminate the CFC's Call for Proposals as widely as possible so that quality projects from their region could be implemented in the days to come. Ambassador Belal urged all to pay greater attention and eventual support for more resources so that the CFC could scale its work as an impact investment fund following the sustainability roadmap. Highlighting the unprecedented damages and loss due to COVID-19, Ambassador Belal urged all to support development organizations to avail a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine and recast a world where our children and theirs will live a life free from the guilt of abject poverty all around.
A presentation on the ongoing work as well as future project proposals of CFC was made during this briefing. A separate Q&A was arranged before the conclusion of the briefing by the Chair, Ambassador Arnoldo Brenes Castro of Costa Rica. Ambassador Paulo Roberto França of Brazil, Ambassador Fernando Antonio Grillo of Colombia, Ambassador Soraya Alvarez of Cuba, Ambassador Carmen María Gallardo of El Salvador, Ambassador Roberto Ochoa Madrid of Honduras, Ambassador Elisabeth Ward Neiman of Panama, Ambassador Marisol Agüero Colunga of Perú, and representatives of Bolivia, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua and Uruguay participated in the briefing.