Donor Conference in NY an excellent initiative

In November, the Caribbean Community (Caricom), with support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), will hold a high-level Donor Conference at the United Nations Headquarters in New York to mobilise international resources for its members devastated by Hurricanes Irma and Maria.
This is an excellent initiative aimed at rebuilding the devastated countries and helping the wider Caricom Region improve its resilience to natural disasters. It was announced by Caricom earlier this week that international development partners; friendly countries; Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs); prominent personalities; Private Sector entities and foundations have been invited to participate. Caricom Heads of Government and the Secretaries General of Caricom and the United Nations are also expected to play a leading role in lobbying for support for the affected countries.
It could be recalled that the powerful Category Five Hurricanes Irma and Maria hit the Region in September causing a number of deaths and widespread devastation in Caricom Member States and Associate Members. Irma, with wind gusts of over 230 miles per hour (mph), damaged or destroyed more than 90 per cent of the buildings on Barbuda – the sister island of Antigua – leading to the complete evacuation of the island; and between 60 and 90 per cent of buildings in Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, the Southern Family Islands in The Bahamas, and the Turks and Caicos Islands. Haiti, and St Kitts and Nevis were also affected.
Maria passed two weeks later, hitting Dominica with such fury Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit was prompted to declare that “Dominica is pure devastation”. In essence, the devastation is unimaginable, and currently, much effort is being placed on rebuilding houses and public infrastructure that were destroyed by the hurricanes.
Caricom, through the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), has been at the forefront of the immediate relief efforts. Member States, including Guyana, Private Sector companies and public-spirited individuals have contributed significant quantities of relief supplies. Several countries have also contributed security personnel, health professionals and utility repair experts, among others.
However, these relief efforts are just short term. Experts have predicted that more frequent and extreme weather linked to climate change, like hurricanes and severe flooding, will occur more often. While we cannot prevent natural disasters from occurring, we can certainly prepare better, so that the impact is reduced. For this reason, it is crucial that in their efforts to rebuild, countries should rebuild better; meaning buildings and infrastructure should be able to withstand the force of natural disasters or minimise the effects as much as possible.
Surely, the decisions we make today will determine our long-term resilience to natural hazards and be critical to people’s well-being in the short and long terms. When we build in hazard-prone areas, or fail to apply the appropriate building codes, people’s lives and assets are put at risk.
With reconstruction costs for the Caribbean nations estimated in the billions of dollars, the UN has said that their economies — often highly indebted and dependent on tourism, fishing and agriculture — need help in setting up a regional emergency insurance fund to soften the impact of disasters.
Disasters require complex responses, drawing on a wide range of skills and capacities. Responses require the cooperation of various stakeholders, including multilateral development agencies, and national and local governments, NGOs, the Private Sector, natural and social scientists, technical specialists and citizens as a whole.
The Donor Conference scheduled for November is, therefore, very timely and, no doubt, will go a very far way in helping countries get back on track. As pointed out by Caricom, the event comes against the backdrop that the impacted countries are Caribbean Small Island and Low-lying Coastal Developing States (SIDS) with inherent vulnerabilities. Most have also been made ineligible for concessional financing from major donors which have categorised them as middle- to high-income countries.
It is, therefore, hoped that the Conference will seek to highlight the plight of these small islands, more particularly the threat they face owing to natural disasters and the need to become resilient.