CDEMA continues to enhance response capacity

THE Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) continues to pursue interventions aimed at enhancing the national, regional and community level response capacity.

“Important among these have been the provision of support for review and revision of national disaster plans and development of community level vulnerability risk profiles and disaster programmes,” disclosed Executive Director of CDEMA, Ronald Jackson.

He recently told the fourth session of the ‘Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction’ that as small islands at risk, we are ever cognisant of the implications of climate change for the sustainable development of societies.

“In light of this, we have begun a process of and will continue to make concerted efforts to make the linkages in the ongoing regional and international dialogue between climate change adaptations. CDEMA has already embarked on a process to support the integration of climate change adaptation into national level disaster management planning and programming and we urge its integration into broader national sustainable development plans and policies.”

According to Jackson, the establishment and maintenance of strong partnerships with development partners, the civil society sector, regional agencies and educational institutions have been instrumental in their successes to date.

“We will continue to pursue the development of relationships with new partners in the international arena as a means of drawing on and sharing expertise...,” he said.

The Executive Director further indicated that going forward, CDEMA will seek to build on and advance the achievements to date.

“There are also a number of key areas that CDEMA will be considering, including greater emphasis on the role of hazard risk assessment in development planning; encouraging governments of the participating states to make greater investments in reducing the underlying drivers of risk; accelerating the application of Information and Communication Technologies to disaster management; promoting gender equality in disaster management interventions; strengthening of partnerships with the private sector; and building of disaster risk reduction capacities to address the growing challenges of climate risk while supporting sustainable development,” he highlighted.

“We will also seek to capitalise on the ongoing regional and international development dialogue on Climate Change, Risk, and Resilience and associated financing for adaptation as this is a priority for SIDS, such as our participating states.” (TL)