Focus on resources in disaster management

“We must continually guard against the situation where the buy-in and resourcing of our agenda is not matched by our capacity to deliver.”

This was the assertion made by Executive Director of Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), Jeremy Collymore, as he stated that there was an urgency to address the human dimension of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR).

“At the most basic level, this has to do with ensuring that the national DRR focal points have the mix of competencies necessary to carry out their mandates. At the same time as the effort to move toward a whole of government and whole of country approach to DRR, there must be a radical shift from human resource management to human resource development for the sector,” he said.

He made the comments at the recently held Annual Caribbean Conference.

Noting the resolve by countries and partners to strengthen this Comprehensive Disaster Management (CDM) movement through the adaptation and development of appropriate policy, programme and resource mobilisation, he outlined that there had been the recognition of the need for participating states to revisit the institutional framework and modes of engagement in addressing the big challenges of creating resilient states.

“The blueprint outlined for reviewing the CDM Strategy and Programme of work has been embraced. The diligence in conversion to measures and programmes that meet resilience standards is now our responsibility. Ownership of this is an important and indispensable step in any efforts to explore and build synergies with other regions or engage in international discourse,” he emphasised.

Collymore expressed his happiness that larger numbers of youth were getting involved in CDM and said that innovative ways must be sought to ensure that they continue to be engaged in pre and post conference exchanges.

“This is a virgin minefield that if well managed can provide the raw material for building resilience communities for generations to come,” he remarked.