Caribbean Development Bank, borrowing member countries and intermediated finance

The mandate and the membership that defines eligibility

CDB's stated mission is to reduce poverty and transform lives through sustainable, resilient, and inclusive development across its borrowing member countries. It has 28 member countries in total, comprising 19 regional borrowing members, 4 regional non-borrowing members, and 5 non-regional non-borrowing members.

That borrowing-member distinction is the eligibility line. CDB's financing is directed at the development of its borrowing member countries, so the first question about any fund is not whether it invests in the Caribbean but whether its activity lands inside those countries.

What the private-sector strategy actually funds

CDB's private-sector work is guided by its Private Sector Strategy 2023 to 2028, and the Bank describes it as strengthening enterprises, expanding access to finance, and unlocking opportunities for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises. The published focus areas are enterprise growth and ecosystem reform, capacity building and technical assistance, climate action in the private sector, procurement participation, and credit enhancement.

Several of those are not financing at all. Enterprise growth work includes reforms to property registration, insolvency legislation, contract enforcement, and business facilitation. Capacity building includes technical assistance to MSMEs with scale-up potential, training for business support organisations, and support to development finance institutions on governance and operations.

Where financing appears, it is often intermediated or risk-sharing rather than direct. CDB's credit enhancement work includes research on a Regional Credit Enhancement Facility to expand guarantees and counter-guarantees, support for a legal framework allowing movable property as collateral, a trade finance guarantee programme, risk-sharing mechanisms, and a rating campaign intended to lower borrowing costs. The Bank also lends directly and partners to enable private investment in climate-resilient agriculture, renewable energy, and water infrastructure.

The private equity work is a feasibility study, and this page says so

CDB states that in 2024 it allocated resources to assess the private equity and venture capital ecosystem, including the feasibility of establishing an impact investment fund. That is an assessment and a feasibility question, and it is the honest description of where the Bank's venture activity stands on its own published account.

This page therefore does not describe CDB as having a standard venture fund commitment product, because nothing in the cited sources supports one. A manager should read the ecosystem work as a signal of direction rather than as an open door, and should ask the Bank directly whether anything has moved from assessment into product since the research date.

No standard ticket is publicly stated for any of CDB's private-sector routes on the sources cited here.

The likely route is intermediated rather than direct

For most private-sector counterparties the practical route into CDB's capital runs through a financial intermediary, a guarantee or risk-sharing structure, or a technical assistance programme, rather than through a direct investment from the Bank. CDB's own framing of expanding access to finance for MSMEs, and its support to development finance institutions in the region, both point the same way.

The Bank also runs an investment forum intended to showcase de-risked, high-potential development projects to attract private-sector financing, which positions CDB as a mobiliser of other people's capital as much as a provider of its own.

What this means for a manager preparing to approach CDB

The general development finance readiness layer applies, and the DFI pathway guide covers it. What is specific to CDB is expectation setting.

• Confirm current status before building a plan, since the venture-relevant work is an assessment rather than a published product.
• Evidence activity inside borrowing member countries specifically, not the Caribbean as a general region.
• Consider whether a guarantee, risk-sharing, or intermediary structure fits the need better than a fund commitment, because those are the instruments CDB publishes most about.
• Look at the Private Sector Strategy 2023 to 2028 as the governing document, since the Bank frames its private-sector work as guided by it.
• Expect a development-impact case framed in the Bank's own terms, including jobs, MSME access to finance, and climate resilience.