| |
Contact:
Julita Peter
Monday, February 02, 2004 - The National Emergency Management
Organization –NEMO will on Tuesday February 3rd, begin a three-day consultation
as work on the formulation of a national hazard mitigation policy continues
here. The consultation which runs until February 5th, at the conference room of
the National Insurance Corporation, is a component of the Caribbean Hazard
Mitigation Capacity Building Program. Through its disaster mitigation facility
for the Caribbean, the CDB with support from the United States Agency for
International Development is seeking to strengthen regional capacity to reduce
the vulnerability to the effects of natural hazards.
According NEMO’s Director Dawn French the consultation will see the coming
together of representatives from the private and public sectors, civic society
and volunteers. “This is part of a wider project with many components, but we
are looking right now at the hazard mitigation, institutional strengthening,
legislative review, and with this consultation we are continuing the process
which we began last year on a draft mitigation policy,” French added.
Over the three days participants will also deliberate on the priorities of
hazards, and according to French whilst many persons believe that the priority
is storm, data suggests that it might be fire. “We respond more to fire than we
do to storm. We may have the luxury of never having to respond to a storm for a
year, but always having to look at hundreds of small fires, be they domestic,
commercial of even bush fires.”
National hazard mitigation policies French noted will provide a basis for
guiding vulnerability reduction activities at the national level and will inform
the development of national hazard mitigation plans.
CEDERA, through the Caribbean Hazard Mitigation Capacity Building Program and
the CDB’s Disaster Mitigation Facility for the Caribbean, is collaborating to
support the development of national hazards mitigation policies and plans in
Belize, Grenada and St. Lucia.
The process to develop national hazard mitigation plans is expected to extend
over the period from January 2004 to May 2005.
|
