Region gets US$9.5M in Disaster Resilience Funding

The Region’s ability to respond to natural disasters and build its resilience is expected to improve as the U.S-Caribbean Resilience Partnership advances.

The working group of the Partnership, which was launched on April 12 in Miami, had its first meeting in Bridgetown, Barbados, on 23-24 October. The meeting concluded with a US$9.5M Disaster Resilience Funding from the  United States.

The Working Group comprises representatives from the United States, 18 Caribbean countries, the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency, the eastern Caribbean’s Regional Security System,  universities, and other non-governmental partners.

The US State Department said the Group discussed plans to improve resilience through $5M in funding for a Caribbean-wide energy initiative – one benefit of which will be to reduce electricity outages resulting from the impacts of hurricanes and floods. $1.5M will support technical exchanges and consultations between U.S. inter-agency resilience experts, ministries, and disaster management officials from the Caribbean region within the partnership.

It said $2M will support the capacity of Caribbean partners to prepare for and mitigate the effects of disasters. 1 million will be directed towards small grants for civil society and NGOs on enhancing community-led disaster resilience in the Eastern Caribbean.

A multilateral programme to improve regional capacity for hurricane forecasting in the Caribbean Sea and tropical North Atlantic Ocean is an important element of the partnership.

Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Curacao, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Sint Maarten, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago are the countries involved in the partnership.

Source: CARICOM TODAY