TORTOLA, British Virgin Islands, May 12, CMC – A five-day workshop aimed at sharpening local capacity to analyse poverty, manage public institutions and accelerate evidence-based development began here on Monday with the organisers indicating that the event is a flagship activity of the Enhanced Country Poverty Assessment (eCPA) programme that spans all nine member countries of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS).
The “Macro-Social-Economic Analysis & Institutional Assessment” (MSEA-IA) workshop is being organised by the OECS in partnership with the Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank (CDB).
It is being facilitated by the Trinidad-based Kairi Consultants Ltd, regional pioneers in poverty diagnostics, under the oversight of the eCPA Project Coordinator. Funding is provided through a CDB technical-assistance grant.
The organisers said that BVI public and private sector participants will learn to interrogate national data on growth, jobs, social protection, climate risk and service delivery, using CDB’s internationally recognised eCPA toolkits.
“The eCPA is about empowering Member States to own their development story. By bringing this training to BVI we are investing in the BVI’s ability to diagnose challenges, craft solutions and demonstrate results to citizens and partners alike,” said Sisera Simon, head of the OECS Human & Social Division.
The portfolio manager, Social Sector Division at the CDB, Elbert Ellis, said that the training workshop is a critical investment in building national capacity to conduct rigorous, context-specific analysis of the social, economic, and institutional drivers of poverty and inequality.
“By equipping stakeholders with the tools and knowledge to better understand social and institutional dynamics, we are empowering them to design and implement more effective, inclusive development strategies in alignment with national priorities and objectives of CDB’s Enhanced CPA Programme,” Ellis added.
The organisers said a draft macro-social-economic profile of the BVI that highlights policy priorities for 2025–2030 is among the expected outputs of the workshop, as well as a preliminary institutional score-card pinpointing strengths and weaknesses across key public-service agencies.
They are also hoping for a cadre of 25–30 national practitioners ready to finalise the BVI’s full MSEA-IA by August 2025, feeding into the Territory’s wider Country Poverty Assessment and medium-term development strategy.
They said that four interactive sessions will be held daily covering demographic analysis, fiscal trends, labour-market dynamics, climate-change impacts, institutional survey techniques and gap-analysis tools.
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