Caribbean prepared for natural hazards

AS it relates to disaster response, the Caribbean is actually one of the better-prepared regions because it is the first region to actually develop an inter-governmental response co-ordination mechanism.

This is according to Deputy Executive Director of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), Liz Riley, to the United Nations (UN), following the recently-concluded fourth session Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction.

“We were able to draw upon the resources from each of our participating states in support of any state that’s affected and that is something that was quite unique of the Caribbean for quite a while. In fact, the Caribbean model has been utilised quite a bit in shaping other inter-governmental arrangements around the world,” she pointed out.

“Within the region, we have a Comprehensive Disaster Management Approach which is very holistic. Traditionally, there’s been a lot of emphasis on the national disaster offices, that everything is to come from the national offices and that is a message we have very much moved away from in the Caribbean. We are focusing very much on trying to strengthen and empower our sectors – tourism, agriculture, and health services education,” Riley disclosed.

The Deputy Director went on to identify that community resilience is one of the pillars upon which Comprehensive Disaster Management is built.

She also indicated that the region has been carrying out significant investment within the last 10 to 15 years on preparation of communities.

“This, of course, is a big task depending on the jurisdiction, but we really feel that the strength of the national system is as strong as the strength of the individuals in the population. We have therefore been working quite a bit in terms of helping communities.

“This includes the readiness of those communities because sometimes when we do have impacts from hazards. These include tropical storms and hurricanes, earthquakes or landslides; communities can be cut off for a period of time, particularly in those territories which are mountainous terrain or even those which are very huge geographically. Therefore, we have been really focusing a lot on the community emergency response teams as a CERT programme where we have been doing training so that there’s basic first responders capacity at the national level to deal with response issues until the national level resources can support,” Riley revealed.