Strengthening
Disaster
Management
in the region
Print this articleThe Caribbean’s tropical climate and warm, friendly people draw millions of tourists from around the world every year. And those of us who live and work in the region consider ourselves blessed to enjoy the coral reefs, sandy beaches and warm sunshine for most of the year. Except, of course, for the annual rainy season.
Increasingly, certainly over the past decade, extreme changes in climate regionally and globally, have caused tremendous loss of life and destruction of property. The Caribbean has not been spared.
The traditional “April showers” of the annual rainy season have been overtaken by a “Hurricane season” of 4–5 months which wreaks havoc with work schedules as well as leisure plans, negatively impacting our very existence.
Institutions such as the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Relief Agency (CDERA) and the Caribbean Development Bank have played a major role in the management of disasters while institutions like the United Nations Development Programme and United Nations Environmental Programme have also contributed invaluable resources—financial and technical in this area.
But the work of protecting the Caribbean from natural disasters is beyond the ability of any one government, any one organization or group of people.
The University of the West Indies is doing its part to strengthen Disaster Management in the region and “The Centre for Disaster Risk Reduction & Management”, established last year in collaboration with CDERA and funded by the UNDP, is designed to mobilize capacity across the University community to assist in the rebuilding efforts of countries affected by natural disasters.
At The UWI, we have over 100 academics with expertise in more than 30 areas including: housing, health (emergency care, disease control, and psycho-social care), agriculture (crop and livestock), fisheries, forestry, roads and drainage, marine and coastal environmental matters, fiscal and economic planning.
The Centre provides greater visibility to this treasure trove of talent which our University possesses and enables better connections to relevant regional and government organizations.
While the main role of universities and colleges in our region is seen as providing education to students seeking undergraduate degrees, it is equally important that there exists capacity for postgraduate and continuing education that can drive creation of new products and services and address our most challenging problems.
