Friday, July 28, 2006

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados: Over the past six years, the United States government, through the USAID Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) has supported the establishment and operations of the Caribbean Development Bank’s Disaster Mitigation Facility for the Caribbean (DMFC).

The establishment of the DMFC has been a significant milestone for disaster risk management in the region. It provides a mechanism for CDB’s borrowing member countries to factor natural hazard such as hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and volcanoes into their development decision-making process to reduce risk and overall losses through sound disaster mitigation policies and practices.

DMFC coordinates closely with national disaster management offices, national development offices, development planning agencies, and regional disaster response and monitoring agencies such as the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency (CDERA), The University of the West Indies Seismic Research Unit (UWI/SRU) and the Caribbean Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH).

USAID will complete its $1.6 million support project for the DMFC on September 30, 2006. The current project activity is the Fifth Meeting of the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) of the DMFC from July 27 - 28, 2006 at Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) in Barbados. This TAC meeting will review the performance of the DMFC and discuss the way forward for disaster risk management at CDB and in the Caribbean.

Participating regional and international institutions include Inter-American Development Bank, Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency, United Nations Development Programme, University of the West Indies and the Organization of American States.

The United States government, through USAID and other federal agencies, continues to support disaster preparedness and risk reduction efforts throughout the Caribbean region.

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