The World Bank Group has en­dorsed a new Coun­try En­gage­ment Note for Bar­ba­dos, for­mal­ly mark­ing a new phase of en­gage­ment with the Caribbean coun­try and its re­turn to the bank’s In­ter­na­tion­al Bank for Re­con­struc­tion and De­vel­op­ment (IBRD).

The Wash­ing­ton-based fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion said Bar­ba­dos, with a pop­u­la­tion of about 300,000, reached the in­come thresh­old for grad­u­a­tion from the IBRD, the World Bank Group’s lend­ing arm that pro­vides fi­nanc­ing and pol­i­cy sup­port to mid­dle-in­come and cred­it­wor­thy low-in­come coun­tries – in 1994.

“How­ev­er, the coun­try has ex­pe­ri­enced eco­nom­ic chal­lenges that have hin­dered its de­vel­op­ment since then,” the World Bank said.