THE CARIBBEAN Disaster Emergency Management Agency wants more emphasis placed on ensuring that all facilities across the region can withstand disasters.

Speaking at a Press conference yesterday to highlight the upcoming International Day For Disaster Reduction, executive director Jeremy Collymore said a project being financed by the Caribbean Development Bank and being implemented by the Caribbean Organisation for Quality and Standards would speak to the enhancement of building codes.

He noted they had also embraced the SAFE Building programme where they were in support of a number of partners with regard to training artisans.

Collymore said that between 2000 and 2008 there were 26 extreme events impacting 14 Caribbean countries. People affected were 4.8 million and damage estimated at US$30 billion.

"If we look at the last 20 years, we will see that this tendency of significant loss and impact on the economy continues to be very evident.

"If you look at the information provided by the global assessment report of the United Nations, you will see that 97 per cent of losses were weather reported, 35 per cent of economic losses in the housing sector, 57 per cent in the schools sub-sector, 65 per cent represents the hospitals and 89 per cent of the roads are significantly affected.

"This reinforces our concern that we need more investment of time, knowledge, technology and capacity in addressing resilience in these particular economies, those of small island and low-lying developing states," he noted.

Monica Zaccarelli Davoli, disaster reduction adviser with the Pan American Health Organisation, stressed it was very important to make sure hospitals were built as they were designed.

She said PAHO had created a hospital index, which served to understand where the fragile aspects of hospitals were. Davoli said too often the original plans were changed, and the end result often saw buildings ending up being vulnerable.

Although not wanting to divulge any information as to whether the Queen Elizabeth Hospital was built to standards, she did state that its biggest weakness was in the functionality "and in the systems that are in place to face disasters or emergencies". (CT)