 I want to thank the United Nations Office in Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean for convening this meeting which brings together developmental partners in one room so that we can discuss the opportunities for the Government of St. Lucia and have a time to dialogue with multiple developments with multiple development organisations with a view to improve the delivery of developmental assistance to St. Lucia and reduce implementation bottlenecks. We sometimes only speak bilaterally but however we seldom find time for our partners ever to speak among themselves about their work in St. Lucia. I'm therefore very heartened by this initiative. I'm informed that this gathering is likely to be the first of its kind in St. Lucia and I welcome this forum and believe that it has the potential to significantly shape our developmental agenda in the years ahead. This forum happens to be quite opportune for many reasons. First St. Lucia is in the process of finalising its 2021-2026 medium-term development strategy called Resilience in Lucia. Our aim is to build a resilient and inclusive nation for a more sustainable and productive future for our people. Sometimes in speaking to members and people in bilateral bodies you seem to think that the Caribbean is one space. It is one space but every island in the Caribbean is uniquely different. Even among the islands of the OECS there is a difference. Antigua is different to St. Lucia. St. Lucia is different to Dominica. There is a difference. So one size does not fit all. And sometimes I wonder whether our partners understand the complexities of these islands. In St. Lucia it rained for one hour and it caused destruction and changed the lives of hundreds of people and I am told that it was judged as a level one emergency so we could get no assistance. This is the reality that we face and I'm happy that our partners can sit and discuss with us the complexities of the situation in these islands. I doubt that these complexities have been fully analysed and we are asked all the time to deal with ratios. We need to have our debt to GDP at a particular ratio. We need to have our deficit at a particular ratio but the lives of the people, how these ratios affect the lives of the people of these islands. I wonder whether it is properly understood that you cannot tell someone about a low debt to GDP ratio when he can't send his children to school. It doesn't matter to him. Your debt to GDP ratio matters nothing to him. What he needs to do is to send his children to school and all these islands are in a crime wave and we ask ourselves what's the reason for the crime wave. Why are these islands suddenly have got into a situation where people's lives do not matter? Why? The answer is complex and I believe that if we can reduce poverty if we can cause less children to go to school hungry and children do go to school hungry whether we believe it or not it is a reality that we have to face and our partners and as we seek the goals of the SDGs we have to understand that everyone will not get there together. These islands are on the threat. We're on the threat from climate change. In St. Lucia it has rained for about six weeks. No and what recompense we have for the rain that has fallen for six weeks and we told is not a level one emergency. So we have to go to our already stretched fiscal situation to repair roads that were damaged by rain for the last six to eight weeks. Where do we get the funding for the people who lost their livelihoods, who lost their food, who lost their home appliances, whose homes got damaged? Where do we get this support for them? But we will only hear about it when it is a massive hurricane and we lose substantial parts of our GDP. My message to you this morning to the partners that I hear is that think about the uniqueness of our situation. Think about how we can forget the textbook theories and deal with the reality of the people's lives, what people are suffering from. We need to be able to face the reality of the situation that exists in these islands. How are we going to solve the crime situation? How are we going to cause young men who know each other born in the same neighborhood who see nothing wrong in shooting each other in the head in broad daylight. It's happening in all the islands. How what can we do? We can sit here and we can talk. We can deal with all kind of projects, not all kind of long documents and sometimes to get to get the aid or to get the support, the process of getting that is so difficult by the time it comes, the problem has got worse by the time the so-called support comes. So I am very thankful for what's happening here this morning, but as Prime Minister I have to deal with the reality of the situation. And I always say to technocrats, you must put yourself sometimes in the place of the politician who has to face the electorate frontally, who listens to, who gets all the complaints, who feels the pain, who feels the reality of life for many people. So I want us to be able to chart a course that will directly and in a timely manner help the most needy in our society. A course that will cause us to be able to respond to events like what happened on Sunday in a timely fashion. And I come to one of my pet topics, the Citizens by Investment Program, which is under tremendous pressure from some of our friends in Europe and they are our friends. It seems, as I said at the UN, that our development is being frustrated by bottlenecks all the time. We were in bananas, we were told that there was free trade and we could no longer have preferential treatment, because it was a free trade so our bananas could no longer have that kind of treatment. We tried tourism, we are in there but the competition is great, we have to deal with many things and the linkages are not what they ought to be. We've tried a CIP program and it's under threat. Under threat because it is said regardless of how we try to see to our partners that all the due diligence necessary is being done. We've said to them help us, help us to get that due diligence done properly. We are under pressure and that seems to be one of the only sources where these governments can get, our governments can get some income to deal with the day-to-day problems in our countries. So to call on our partners to put yourself in the place, put yourself in our place and think about having to run a country where one hour of rain can create massive destruction and we are lucky it caused destruction in a particular part of the island. If it was in parts of my constituency it would have been a lot worse. This is the reality that we face. So I want to thank you for being here this morning. I'm sorry if I didn't give a prime ministerial speech but I thought it was necessary to deal with the reality of the situation in Celusia. So I did not stick to my notes, I'm very sorry about it but it's not very often I get the time to speak to people who have the opportunity to see through their principles the reality of the situation. I thank you very much.