 Individuals, businesses and households are being encouraged to access financing at concessionary rates to undertake projects designed to combat climate change. The Climate Adaptation Finance Facility is available at the St Lucia Development Bank. Rajvaro Lawrence reports. Given the country's high vulnerability to climate change, the Government of St Lucia has embarked on creating the Climate Adaptation Finance Facility CAF, a US $5 million line of credit under the St Lucia Disaster Vulnerability Reduction Project. Stemming from recommendations provided during private sector and civil society consultations under the Pilot Program for Climate Resilience, the CAF will offer concessional climate change adaptation loans through the St Lucia Development Bank to individual households and businesses. From the home owner's perspective, persons can look to see how they can strengthen their retaining walls. They can strengthen their roofs. Persons can put in shutters. Persons can look to harvest their rainwater to make them more self-sustainable. Persons can put on photovoltaic systems to produce their own electricity for energy efficiency. We've also seen it for businesses and a full spectrum of businesses from the farmer to the contractor to the big business. We have facilities that will allow persons to again make their business more resilient. The greater frequency and intensity of extreme weather and chronic climate impacts impose real costs on communities and companies. Extreme weather causes property damage, disrupts business operations and affects global supply chains across the economy. Sectors more closely tied to natural resources such as agriculture or tourism are particularly vulnerable to changing climate conditions. The St Lucia Development Bank Climate Adaptation Finance Facility will be offered at interest rates between 4 and 7 percent per annum. A lot of persons, first of all, they started to take on solar water heaters. Then with the drought, we saw them taking on rainwater tanks and creating their own storage. For the farmers, they came and they were asking for the bigger tanks, 15,000 gallon tanks, which is things that they need because we saw how the drought impacted everyone severely, particularly in our food security. This special financing arrangement can also be used to fund drought and disease-resistant crops, soil stabilization, greenhouses, retrofitting of roofs and buildings and the installation of photovoltaic systems, which converts sunlight into electricity to power homes and businesses. On November 20, the Department of Economic Development in collaboration with the St Lucia Development Bank went one step further and launched the Climate Adaptation Financing Facility Business Recovery Program. The St Lucia Development Bank, through its partnership with the DVRP, was able to have the World Bank and its partners, the Climate Investment Fund, repurpose the Climate Adaptation Financing Facility. And not that it's going to move away strictly from its core mandate, which was looking at making solutions, their households, their businesses, more resilient to the climate, but it now takes into consideration the impact of COVID. So they're allowing us to be able to build a level of resiliency for persons who were impacted by COVID. The intention is for persons to submit a business plan to us with their financial statements showing how they were impacted. The St Lucia Development Bank will be on lending the CAF BRP loans at a starting interest rate of 3.75% with the minimum loan amount of $20,000, while the maximum loan is capped at $200,000. Grants up to 15% of the loan will also be offered to micro, small and medium enterprises. We do thank the World Bank and the Climate Investment Fund for facilitating this sort of transition, but also for our partners at the Economic Development Unit at the Ministry, from the Minister down to Mr. Tommy Descartes, who is very instrumental in getting us to this position. I've been able to facilitate and assist solutions in their recovery to the COVID. The CAF BRP grant and loans will be provided for projects that support business continuity and recovery from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and or for climate resilience with a grace period of six months. From the Government Information Service, Rodgvaro Lawrence reporting.