By Apna News
ST. JOHN’S, ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA - Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced more than $70 million in new investments to strengthen resilience across the Commonwealth, including the Caribbean, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in St. John’s, Antigua and Barbuda, the Prime Minister’s Office announced November 3, 2026.
The investments will help build stronger infrastructure, improve emergency preparedness operations, restore forest ecosystems, and enable the rapid dispatch of emergency relief. The Commonwealth brings together 56 nations, and Canada is its second-largest financial contributor. This was Prime Minister Carney’s first participation at the biennial summit, accompanied by Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand, under the theme “Accelerating Partnerships and Investment for a Prosperous Commonwealth.”
At the meeting, the Prime Minister hosted a meeting with Caribbean leaders to build momentum for the renewed Canada-CARICOM Strategic Partnership, discussing energy, food security, regional security and infrastructure, and ways to help countries prepare for and respond to climate change and natural disasters.
The backgrounder breaks down the funding as $10 million over six years through UNICEF to help Caribbean countries, including Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Suriname, ensure children can continue learning safely during climate-related emergencies and other disasters. A further $5 million over two years through the United Nations Office for Project Services will help Dominica, Grenada, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines develop more climate-resilient infrastructure.
Another $5 million over two years will support the World Food Programme’s Caribbean Regional Logistics Hub and Centre for Excellence in Bridgetown, Barbados, which stores emergency supplies and helps quickly dispatch food and relief items after natural disasters. A further $3 million over three years through the International Trade Centre will help Caribbean businesses turn sargassum seaweed from a coastal problem into products including fertilisers, building materials and biofuels.
Outside the Caribbean, FinDev Canada will provide an approximately $50 million loan to Zanaco, the largest financial institution in Zambia, to improve access to financial services for small and medium-sized businesses, including women-owned or led businesses and agribusinesses. The government says this is FinDev Canada’s first direct investment in Zambia.
“As Canada charts its path forward in this new world, we look to our fellow Commonwealth members as partners,” said Prime Minister Carney. “In an increasingly fragmented world, we are acting together to create greater security, opportunity, and prosperity for our peoples.”
For Surrey, the announcement speaks directly to families with roots across the Caribbean, Africa and the wider Commonwealth, and to a city whose trade and diaspora ties stretch across all 56 member nations. Climate resilience, school safety during disasters and small business finance are not distant summit topics here; they are the realities relatives back home live with, and the reasons many Surrey families follow Commonwealth summits closely.
(Source: Prime Minister’s Office, November 3, 2026)
