Basseterre, St. Kitts (December 9, 2015) — General Manager of the Development Bank of St. Kitts and Nevis, Mr Lenworth Harris, is lauding the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) for its continued training programmes for development and indigenous finance institutions in its borrowing member countries saying it is saving such institutions great expenses that would have been incurred to facilitate capacity building of their staff.
Mr Harris made the remarks on Wednesday December 2 at a dinner and certificate presentation ceremony held at the Ocean Terrace Inn’s Fisherman’s Wharf Restaurant for participants of the three-day third training module which focused on Enterprise Risk Management, which ran from Monday October 30 as part of the four-module CDB’s 2015 Training Programme for Development Finance Institutions taking place at the St. Kitts Marriott Resort.
“The workshops the Caribbean Development Bank has put on over the years have been comprehensive and have addressed some key operational areas of banking,” said Mr Harris. “It is an exposure that would have cost us an arm and a bit of a leg if we had tried to do it all by ourselves.”
Nineteen participants took part in the training module, Enterprise Risk Management, and Mr Harris especially welcomed to St. Kitts fourteen who came from different borrowing member countries of the CDB. Of the other five participants, one was from the St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla National Bank, and four were from the Development Bank of St. Kitts and Nevis.
“The blending and the mixing of experience, views from different institutions I think all lent to the quality of the workshop,” said Mr Harris. He hoped that the participants would through communication, stay connected and utilise the networks created to share ideas and brainstorm on possible solutions to challenges that may develop within their different institutions.
The General Manager also took time to thank the training programme’s organiser Ms Lisa Harding, Operations Officer, Private Sector Development Unit, Caribbean Development Bank, the local organiser Ms Danienne Brin, who is the Human Resource, Marketing and Product Development Manager at the Development Bank of St. Kitts and Nevis, and the course facilitator Mr Wayne Dass who is the Chief Executive Officer of the Trinidad-based Caribbean Information & Credit Ratings Services Limited (CariCRIS).
The nineteen participants in the Enterprise Risk Management module were drawn from nine of the CDB’s Borrowing Member Countries. Present were Barbados (4 participants), Bahamas (1), Belize (2), British Virgin Islands (1), Dominica (1), Grenada (1), Jamaica (2), St. Lucia (2), and host country St. Kitts and Nevis (5).
Addressing the participants during the training module’s opening ceremony on Monday November 30, organiser Ms Lisa Harding said that the CDB has had a long relationship with development banks in the region since its inception over 40 years ago and has been primarily involved in providing lines of credit and technical assistance to them.
She advised the participants that Enterprise Risk Management practises have become more and more sophisticated, and noted that the workshop was designed “to give staff of development finance institutions useful training in the rapidly expanding field of enterprise risk management including how to identify, quantify and mitigate against an increasing amount of organisational risks.”
She also hoped that the training would be of benefit to the participants and their institutions and that they would be able to apply the knowledge gained, during the three-day period, when they return to their institutions.
During the presentation of certificates to the third training module participants, Ms Harding advised that the Caribbean Development Bank is cognisant of the need to approach risk in a more holistic manner. She said: “We have moved beyond recognising only financial risks to a great appreciation of other equally critical risks such as operational risks, market risks, and industry risks.”
The final three-day training module, of the four-module CDB’s 2015 Training Programme for Development Finance Institutions taking place at the St. Kitts Marriott Resort, starts on Wednesday December 9.