Dickon Mitchell

Dickon Mitchell, the Prime Minister of Grenada since 2022, knows all too well the devastation a natural disaster can visit upon a small island nation like his. He also understands why climate resiliency is so urgent for countries facing financial and structural ruin. This July, when Hurricane Beryl made landfall on the Grenadian islands of Carriacou and Petite Martinique as a Category 4 tropical cyclone, the destruction was immense: roofs torn from homes, boats scattered across the land, public water supplies and health infrastructure decimated. Three people were killed.

Because of the scale of that wreckage, the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF) made a record $44 ­million payment to Grenada to help it rebuild—and that allowed Mitchell to activate a first-of-its-kind debt clause postponing $30 ­million in repayments from the Grenadian government to private investors, including U.S. investment firms Franklin Templeton and T. Rowe Price. While the debt will still be paid back later, the near-term flexibility allowed Mitchell’s government to increase its liquidity and put the additional resources to disaster relief—a form of climate resiliency that had never before been tested. 

Mitchell’s historic move may not have been possible if not for storms that rocked the nation twenty years prior. Grenada was pummeled in 2004 by Hurricane Ivan, which killed 37 people and damaged 90% of the homes in its path. Less than a year later, Hurricane Emily struck, compounding an already strained recovery effort. The tab for rebuilding was equal to 200% of the nation’s GDP at the time, catapulting Grenada into a cycle of debt on which it ultimately defaulted. In 2015, as Grenada negotiated with creditors, the country introduced disaster clauses to prevent crippling debt from exacerbating the pain of rebuilding in the future. The creditors ultimately agreed that if Grenada received an insurance payout exceeding $15 million from CCRIF, it would trigger the suspension of certain debt payments—precisely what happened this year. 

“With international partnership we developed innovative financial tools…which allow us to receive financial payouts and recover more swiftly from natural disasters,” Mitchell told the United Nations General Assembly in September as he advocated for more relief. “These efforts reflect more than just economic policy; they show that small nations like Grenada can develop sophisticated solutions to the challenges we face.” 

The world has taken notice. Based on Grenada’s rebuilding efforts, countries like Spain are now advocating that wealthy nations across the globe offer these types of pause clauses to help developing countries recover. It’s a loan structure the World Bank has recently been working on as well. Meanwhile, Mitchell has been active at home and abroad leading the conversation about climate resiliency. In the wake of Hurricane Beryl, he took over as the rotating chairman of CARICOM, a regional bloc of Caribbean nations, and stressed the urgency of finding solutions to climate disasters. He also formed a task force within his government focused on securing climate justice and compensation for the nations most vulnerable to destructive storms. In doing so, he has invited the international community to partner with Grenada in developing resilience policies.   

“We have lived through the destructive power of hurricanes, which can erase decades of progress in just a few minutes, but we have also seen that when communities are prepared—we can save lives and livelihoods,” Mitchell told the U.N. “We are a living lab on the front lines of a global challenge.”