ST. JOHN’S, Antigua – The governing body of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency, CDERA, began their Pre-Board Meeting on Monday (May 19) morning at the Jolly Beach Resort with earthquake preparedness high on the agenda.
Program Manager at CDERA, Liz Riley said “This year one of the areas of focus is on the whole issue of earthquake readiness, as you know in November 2007 we had a major event (earthquake), 7.3 on the Richter scale which affected most of the Eastern Caribbean all the way down to Guyana and of course there is a high risk of earthquake in the region and it’s a hazard that we have not paid sufficient attention too”.
Riley further stated that CDERA is working with the member-states disaster offices in an effort to improve their readiness for when an earthquake should strike.
“One of the interventions that the coordinating council is working on is to assist countries with getting a sense as to how ready we are in addressing the earthquake hazard,” the programme manger said, while speaking to reporters on Monday.
Other topics that will form part of the meeting include Post Disaster Impact Assessments, which is a mythology, organized by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, UNELAC, and seeks to determine the socio-economic impact of hazards in the Caribbean. In addition, the attendees will also pay some attention to CCRIF, Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility, which will seek to familiarize national disaster coordinators with the operation of the CCRIF, while sharing lessons learnt in the application of the CCFIF. Another area of focus will be Disaster Risk Management for Strategies for the Tourism Sector.
The pre-board meeting is designed to enhance the capacity of the national technical leaders in disaster management and facilitate technical discussion between national disaster coordinators in selected priority areas. The 2008 board meeting is combination of training, technical information sharing and technical dialogue.
Attending the CDERA pre-board meeting are representatives from the sixteen-member states and specially invited guests that include Suriname and Bahamas. Also forming part of the meeting are technical representatives from Seismic Research Unit in Trinidad, OECS Secretariat, and the University of the West Indies. The official board meeting gets started on Wednesday evening with an Opening Ceremony, while the business matters continue on Thursday and Friday.
