All CARICOM member states are being urged to honour their financial obligations to the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA).
Minister of Home Affairs Wilfred Abrahams made that call after he expressed his disappointment that the organisation did not always receive all of its dues.
“It is difficult to get countries, some Caribbean territories to make their financial commitments to CDEMA. People tend not to recognise the importance of CDEMA until they need CDEMA,” he said.
He made those comments recently during the opening ceremony of the Regional Response Mechanism (RRM) After Action Review at the Hilton Barbados Resort.
Abrahams stressed that countries should not only feel obligated to pay up CDEMA and other organisations after they were impacted by a disaster.
“CDEMA is another CARICOM agency that you want to put in just what you have to put in because that is your agreement. A leader of a CARICOM country made a promise that they would not fall behind on their payments to CDEMA again but that was because when they had reason to call upon CDEMA, CDEMA stepped [in] and delivered. They then understood what CDEMA and the RRM were there for. It should not take you having to be impacted to do that.
“They are operating on shoestring budgets – never getting the full commitment, year after year. Then when disaster hits, we expect that organisation to deliver as if they were the best-funded, provisioned, organised organisation in the world,” Abrahams said.
While acknowledging some of the criticisms of CARICOM agencies, Abrahams said some were unjustifiable.
“Our criticisms for the shortfall of our regional organisations are unfair because in many instances we do not give them what they need to put themselves in a position to deliver upon promises or their mandates,” he added. The three-day conference is being held under the theme Strengthening Response, Shaping The Future.
During the opening ceremony, several officials from regional and international organisations, such as United Nations Resident Coordinator Simon Springett, Canadian High Commissioner Brenda Willis, European Union Ambassador Małgorzata Wasilewska, Climate Change Team Lead with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office of the United Kingdom Richard Carter, and executive director of CDEMA Elizabeth Riley, spoke.
Riley said that with some changes in the international geo-political landscape, regional organisations would have to do more to ensure they were more efficient.
“The geo-political shift has exposed the high risk of our regional response mechanism and the Caribbean must reaffirm its commitment to strengthening self-reliance for effective response to disasters through deepening our national capacities, regional and international partnerships, pooling resources and engaging new and non-traditional partners,” Riley said.
Carter justified the importance of why they were supporting CDEMA and the other disaster preparedness agencies during the exercise.
“The probability of another hazard even in the next few months is close to 100 per cent. This is our reality. Whether that hazard becomes a disaster is a function of the intensity and the resilience of the impacted zone.
“As it stands we can do nothing about the wind speed, rainfall, or storm surge but we can do a great deal about the latter; the resilience of Caribbean infrastructure, our systems and our people and the effectiveness of our preparatory behaviours and actions.
“This after-action review will provide critical data related to our resilience, behaviours for that critical feedback in the disaster risk management cycle enabling us to improve our resilience, guide our behaviours and reduce the likelihood of the next hazard becoming a disaster,” Carter added.
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