LatinNews Daily - 20 November 2025

*The World Bank (WB) and Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), have released a new estimate regarding the cost of physical damage to Jamaica caused by Hurricane Melissa which made landfall as a category 5 storm in Jamaica last month before hitting other Caribbean nations. The latest estimate puts the cost of damage at US$8.8bn - equivalent to 41% of the country’s 2024 GDP, a significant increase on preliminary estimates made by Jamaica’s Prime Minister Andrew Holness earlier this month which put losses caused by the hurricane at US$6bn-US$7bn, about 28%-32% of the country’s GDP.  According to a WB press release, the Global Rapid Damage Estimation (GRADE), a remote, desk-based damage assessment methodology developed by the WB and Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery, a global partnership programme, assessed “physical damage across residential, non-residential, infrastructure, and agricultural sectors”. However, this “does not include broader economic losses, which are expected to be even more significant”. According to the preliminary findings, 41% of the assessed damages were to residential buildings, 33% to infrastructure, 21% to non-residential buildings, and 5% to the agriculture sector, including livestock and related infrastructure. The WB notes that “while physical damage to agriculture is comparatively lower, the sector is expected to face significant economic losses”.

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