Who We Are

Philosophy and Mission

The Bold Centre is a social enterprise. We are both a global advisory company for development and an implementation company helping institutions, governments and corporate clients execute, in a practical way, complex, transformational initiatives, or simply unstick obstacles that are preventing real growth, reform and development. Apart from solving problems, our work is focused on identifying opportunities and maximizing value – in other words, setting up for success.

The Bold Centre was founded on the acknowledgement that while think tank-type research, analysis and contributions are important for improving development outcomes globally, many developing populations would also find value at the level of governments, companies and institutions in enhanced capacity to apply learning and execute.

Our mission, through the development solutions that we work alongside clients to deliver, is to improve people’s lives and help all people achieve intergenerational well-being and prosperity. Time is running out to solve problems in a way that will matter for people. This is the time to not just think or talk development, but to do development. Boldly.

The company’s work and mission are rooted in and connected to the Bold Institute, our non-profit arm and the home of our Advisory Council.

About the Founder

Marsha Caddle is a Barbadian economist and public policy strategist who serves as President and Chief Economist of global advisory The Bold Centre.

A former Minister for Economic Affairs and Investment in Barbados from 2018-2022, she helped lead Barbados’ 2018 economic recovery programme, which saw the country’s depleted foreign reserves increase eightfold by the end of the term, and its debt and arrears fall by a third following an international and domestic debt restructuring. She was ministerial negotiator on climate finance for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in 2021, introducing in the Glasgow Climate Pact the use of redistributed Special Drawing Rights for scaled up finance in climate vulnerable nations. She also led the first reform of physical planning and land use policy in over 50 years.

Her areas of work are climate finance and sustainable development; poverty, inequality and human development; public investment, growth and competitiveness; financing for development; physical planning; and data and national statistics. She has led the Governance practice at the Caribbean Development Bank, managed the Poverty Reduction programme with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the Economic Security and Rights programme of the then United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) Caribbean Offices.

She is a pioneer economist in applying gender and macroeconomic policy frameworks to public finance in the Caribbean, and is a member of the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) and the International Working Group on Gender, Macroeconomics and International Economics (GEM-IWG). Her work experience in economic policy and human development spans over 20 countries. She has written and spoken extensively on matters of equality and economic and climate justice.

Marsha Caddle is an elected Member of Parliament in the Barbados House of Assembly.

About the Team

Our 19 practice areas are led by global Practice Experts who assemble multi-disciplinary teams based on project scope.

Let’s find your team

What We Do

The Bold Centre is a social enterprise. We are both a global advisory company for development – from climate finance to energy and infrastructure to nutrition security and education – and an implementation company helping institutions, governments and corporate clients execute in a practical way complex, transformational initiatives, or simply unstick obstacles that are preventing delivery.

Understanding both the drivers and manifestations of inequality, poverty and economic insecurity are critical for solving them. Bold helps governments and institutions measure and assess these issues, but also helps design and implement policies and programmes across sectors that respond.

How the world addresses the climate crisis is not just about the science, advocacy and political engagement, but increasingly about the financial instruments and flows required to address mitigation, adaptation and climate-driven disasters. For frontline countries, disaster mitigation and response call for local and regional coordination and predictable, external finance flows. Bold works across these areas to bring workable responses for companies, institutions and governments.

Increasingly stronger commitments to the goals of the Paris Agreement to reduce emissions mean that companies and governments must undergo transitions of different types. Bold helps companies analyse their supply and value chains to find opportunities for emissions reductions, undertake climate accounting and understand the potential risk changes in climate may hold for their operations. Bold also works with countries at the national level on issues of just transition: ensuring balance in the decisions taken to meet net zero commitments, and that developing countries and their people do not regress in their economic and social well-being while climate targets are being pursued.

Women and men contribute to, benefit from and experience the economy in different ways. This is based on socialized notions of what it means to be male and female, and the inherent value and role of each group based on these notions. Policy is not fully responsive unless it uncovers and addresses implicit and explicit biases in how all genders are able actualize their full productive capacity and live the lives they choose. Whether it is work on unpaid care, national budgets, entrepreneurship, labour and many others, Bold advises on and helps execute gender-sensitive policy for inclusive growth and equitable development in this and across all practice areas.

The rate at which a country’s economy grows, and the extent to which this growth includes and benefits all, is based on several factors, key among which is the capacity of institutions to foster a competitive environment for new business to be created and for existing business to grow. While the standard drivers of human and natural resources, infrastructure and technology are critical, developing countries and populations often have other enabling environment factors to resolve. Bold works with the public and private sector to find and capitalize on growth opportunities.

Startups and small companies need the kinds of financing and support services that match their business model and foster their own innovative ideas. Larger companies often need to reach new markets, in particular large, poor and underserved populations who need access to key goods and services that would improve their well-being. Bold helps companies access new markets and find new customers who need their products most.

Bold helps investors looking for opportunities in emerging and developing economies find projects with both financial and social returns, and helps countries structure appropriate financial facilities to receive these investments. Such facilities include enhanced financial services for unbanked and underserved populations in those markets, helping them undertake their own investment, avoid risk and transact meaningfully. Bold services to investor clients also include investment facilitation in markets that are still developing their business facilitation capacity, to help provide more clarity about how these markets function and the potential entry points.

Increasingly, issues of how states finance their development are related to other critical matters, like climate, debt accumulation, public asset management and public-private partnerships (PPPs). Some of the constraints they face are external and originate in international financial systems, and others are internal to national systems of governance and public financial management. Bold works with international financial institutions (IFIs) to develop financial instruments that match developing country needs, and with countries to identify the right mix of external sources and internal management to achieve sustainable financial management.

Nutrition security involves not just growth of local and regional agriculture sectors to produce food, sustain livelihoods, develop mature value chains and integrate into global markets; it also includes overnutrition, its effect on health and implications for the supply of nourishing foods. Bold works with institutions, governments, communities and companies to address challenges in the agriculture and food sectors to help achieve nutrition security for all.



Access to water for individuals, communities and critical sectors remains a challenge as water scarcity increases globally, and sanitation practices are still needed that improve people’s well-being and protect groundwater supply and fragile eco-systems. Bold works with non-state actors, governments and companies to improve sustainability and increase access in the water and sanitation sector.

Resilient infrastructure and physical development planning are key factors in a country’s capacity for growth, and in the capacity of people and communities to drive growth and improve their well-being. Bold helps governments, companies and institutions develop sustainable infrastructure across sectors and meet a balance of physical development among competing needs.

The price of fossil fuel use goes far beyond the unsustainable amounts many countries must spend as a percentage of their GDP – resources that could be better invested in human development – but also includes the ultimate cost to human and ecosystem survival. Bold helps clients identify and structure high impact renewable energy investments to help realise energy independence in increasingly volatile energy markets.

Bold, led mainly by the Institute, works with practitioners and researchers to find more meaningful ways of understanding, measuring and improving human development – the expansion of choices available to people to realize their capacity, live the lives they value and enhance their well-being. This approach to development guides the Bold Centre’s work with clients, and promotes prioritization of people and communities, not just markets and economic systems.

Inclusive, job-led, innovation-led growth requires diversified education and training approaches. Bold works with governments, foundations and other institutions to develop educational practices that support people’s capacity to earn.

Pandemics and other health crises, chronic non-communicable diseases and health risks more prevalent in under-researched populations call for a range of responses. Bold works with public and private institutions to strengthen access to affordable health care, contribute to better individual health choices and enhance outcomes for all.

 How an organization is structured, organized and resourced for results is at the core of its success. Whether it is identifying the needed roles/functions, improving systems or strengthening transparency and accountability, Bold helps government departments, private companies and organisations strengthen their institutions and develop governance structures and processes that help them meet their mandates.

Bold works alongside clients to help them execute in a practical way complex, transformational initiatives, or simply unstick obstacles that are preventing delivery.

Strategy documents like growth and development plans, medium-term economic strategies, draft legislation and guiding documents in key sectors can help governments and institutions determine a roadmap and follow it. Bold works with clients to make these policy documents, clear, live and doable.

The use of data and its analysis for policy development have multiple applications. Bold works with governments to strengthen national statistical systems, as well as with companies and institutions to pull data from different sources into their strategy development.

How We Do It

Bold works across the public, private and third sectors to analyze challenges and opportunities and advise clients on how to reach their goals; to design and execute original research; and to do development through our implementation teams.

Advisory

Advisory

A core part of what we deliver to clients is analysis followed by strategy and execution recommendations. Our work is based on our global networks, expertise and experience in the practice area but also on the knowledge and experience developed by experts and communities on the ground, with whom we partner.

Research

Research

Commissioned research can help governments and institutions understand the environment in which they operate. Bold also delivers research products requested by clients to provide context in their policy space.

Implementation

Implementation

Bold’s tagline – do development – comes from an acknowledgment that capacity to execute is often a key constraint to achieving the development goals set by countries and institutions. Having knowledgeable teams show up to work alongside clients on projects or on executing recommendations can often be the last-mile solution required.