Caribbean Policy Development Centre

The Caribbean Policy Development Centre (CPDC) was established in 1991 and is a legally registered non-profit organisation headquartered in Barbados. The CPDC was first established as a policy unit within the Caribbean Conference of Churches (CCC) on the recognition of the significant adverse impacts that national, regional and international development policies were having on the region’s most vulnerable communities. Many of these communities were being served by the CCC and other Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). The NGO community recognised that its quality of life interventions were threatened by an inability to articulate people-centred policy advocacy and lobbying. The CPDC was commissioned, by the CCC and a network of active development NGOs, with the task to focus on ensuring that the social dislocation caused by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB) policies received a fitting collective, inclusive, and representative, people-centred development policy advocacy and lobbying response. All of the 20 leading NGOs in the Caribbean that were the catalyst for the CPDC’s formation also became its core membership, drawn from across all of the language groupings of the region. Currently, thirty-one NGOs and four individuals comprise the CPDC’s membership. Since its establishment, the CPDC has been a voice for the NGO community and their beneficiaries on key socio-economic and other development issues. Through the engagement of regional and national policymakers, the CPDC has brought the plight of the most vulnerable groups in Caribbean society to the forefront in key policy fora and dialogue at the national, regional and international levels. The CPDC is cemented in its belief that development should be centred around the needs of the people and not purely by market forces and an influential minority of decision-makers within developed economies.