4 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 7, 2010 – It’s hurricane season and there will soon be an enhanced regional coordination of humanitarian assistance in place.
Regional coordination of humanitarian assistance will soon be reality with today’s signing of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and The Government of Brazil Cooperation Programme on Disaster Risk Reduction.
The signing took place at the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency’s (CDEMA) Manor Lodge Office in St Michael between Jeremy Collymore, Executive Director of CDEMA and Appio Claudio Acquarone, Ambassador of Brazil. It is intended to mitigate and respond to social, man-made and natural disasters as well as to assist with reconstruction efforts in CARICOM Member States.
The government of Brazil will donate US $562 600 to the fund, which will be disbursed to CDEMA through the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Collymore says, “Recent flood events across our participating states, in the last month, have reminded us of significant loss of social and infrastructure capital that must be addressed”. He says that with the recent flooding experience here, work will be done on flooding, but notes it will be more in terms of infrastructure. In addition there will be extensive assessment work done also the production of a report on the impact felt in the 16 CDEMA participating states.
