Professor Avinash Persaud is special envoy to the Prime Minister of Barbados Mia Mottley and emeritus professor at Gresham College in the UK. He, along with PM Mottley, helped design the Bridgetown Initiative in 2022 which laid out a path for reforming and ramping up the mobiliisation of climate finance to the developing world. The initiative has gathered vast international support and he’s heading to COP28 in Dubai to work on advancing the climate development agenda.

His career spreads across finance, academia and public policy, including positions as a former senior executive of J.P. Morgan, UBS, State Street, chairman of the CARICOM Commission on the Economy, chairman of the regulatory sub-committee of the UN Commission on Financial Reform and chairman of the Warwick Commission on International Financial Reform, Visiting Scholar at the IMF and a former Governor of the London School of Economics.

Related Episodes

Episode 2 with Rachel Kyte: https://www.cleaningup.live/episode-2-rachel-kyte/

Links

Read an initial press release of the Bridgetown Initiative: https://pmo.gov.bb/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/The-2022-Bridgetown-Initiative.pdf

Read a summary of the Bridgetown Initiative’s key demands: https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/what-is-bridgetown-initiative-asking-paris-financial-summit-2023-06-20/

Review PM Mottley’s speech to COP27, outlining the need for the Bridgetown Initiatve: https://latinarepublic.com/2022/11/08/mia-mottley-prime-minister-of-barbados-speaks-at-the-opening-of-cop27/

Explore the COP28 website: https://www.cop28.com

Read this report on the difficult path ahead to a new loss-and-damage fund agreement at COP28: https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/sustainable-finance-reporting/impasse-broken-climate-fund-before-cop28-tough-road-ahead-2023-11-06

The Bridgetown Initiator - Ep145: Prof Avinash Persaud

Cleaning Up: Leadership in an Age of Climate Change