HIGH COMMISSIONER TO LONDON HOSTS INTRODUCTORY MEETINGS TO DISCUSS BAHAMIAN YOUTH INITIATIVES

5th September, 2024

On 3^rd and 4^th September 2024, His Excellency Paul Andy Gomez, High Commissioner to the Court of St. James’s (UK) and Northern Ireland met with Senior Executives from The Bahamas Development Bank, (Mr Gavin Christie, Deputy Chairman, Mr Nicholas Higgs, Managing Director, and Mr Dave Munroe, Deputy Managing Director), Policy Advisors of the Prime Minister ( Mr Jerome Fitzgerald, Senior Policy Advisor and Mr Kevin Simmons, Advisor to the Prime Minister) Climate Change Unit (Mrs Rochelle Newbold, Director of Climate Change & Environmental Advisory Unit and Mrs Larissa Cartwright, National Emissions Register) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs ( Mr. Antonio V. Butler Jr, Head of the Bilateral and Regional Affairs Bureau) to discuss business and trade opportunities and a new financial governance framework initiative known as “COMPASS or the Common Pool Assets Structuring System” which is a joint venture of the Commonwealth Secretariat and the University of Cambridge.

COMPASS  has been designed to ultimately provide project funding to youth from the age 19 to 35 in thirty-one (31) Small Island Developing States (SIDS) that are members of the Commonwealth of Nations, to enable them to invest in nature-based projects and/or in youth themed projects that are climate-friendly. It is believed that COMPASS could be an effective tool in solving youth unemployment in Commonwealth SIDS around the world, while simultaneously creating a new and younger class of entrepreneurs.

The Government of The Bahamas is currently looking for ways to strengthen its national and economic capacities through youth-led and youth-inclusive solutions to our current environmental and climate challenges, in order to increase climate resiliency, and to attract sustainable development finance.

Youth are the Future. –  “Their Future, Our Action”