As part of its 175th anniversary celebrations, Crown Agents sponsored a high-level debt management forum for financial secretaries of the nine-member countries of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States. The forum was convened in collaboration with the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank to address a number of strategic issues in debt management with participation from the World Bank, Caribbean Development Bank and Inter-American Development Bank and the Commonwealth Secretariat. The agenda reflected the priority areas in debt management identified by financial secretaries following a survey that we carried out earlier in the year. It focused on:
- The high levels of indebtedness in the region and constraints it placed on governments in pursuing their development needs, the increased risk of default or higher risk premiums on borrowing, and the crowding-out of private sector expenditures
- Developing a debt and risk management strategy based on the World Bank's Medium Term Debt Strategy (MTDS) tool
- Cash management techniques such as the process of aggregating all government cash balances in a Treasury Single Account (TSA) and in the steps to improve cash flow forecasting
- Constraints to developing a deep market for government securities in small states and the benefits of a regional government securities market in reducing reliance on external borrowing and lengthening the maturity of securities
- Effective use of debt management systems to make the most of their functionality and improve data analysis and dissemination;
- How risks of substantial losses could be reduced through effective controls, clear roles and responsibilities, well-documented procedures and strong monitoring mechanisms.
In his welcoming address, the Governor of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, Sir K. Dwight Venner, 
noted that the small, open, and vulnerable economies of the Caribbean were leading an increasingly fragile existence in the wake of climate change, the instability in global financial markets and significant movements in food and fuel prices. The Governor stressed the need for stronger debt management along with greater financial regulation and fiscal prudence.
Crown Agents Director of Debt Management, Dev Useree, indicated that the hosting of the forum was particularly timely given the global challenges facing Caribbean public finance managers. This point was reaffirmed by Governor Venner in his closing remarks.