The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) approved on February 4, 2008, SDR 2.05 million (about US$3.3 million) in emergency assistance for Dominica. This amount is available immediately to help the government deal with the effects of Hurricane Dean, which struck Dominica in August 2007.

The damage caused by Hurricane Dean is estimated at almost 20 percent of GDP. The agriculture sector, one of the major sources of foreign exchange earnings, took the brunt of the damage. Economic growth is estimated to have slowed to around 1 percent in 2007