Guyana to attend important regional meetings on disaster preparedness

DPI, GUYANA, Friday, May 11, 2018

The Guyana Civil Defence Commission (CDC) will be representing Guyana at regional meetings on disaster reduction and hurricane season.

Director General of the CDC, Lieutenant Colonel Kester Craig, will be Guyana’s representative at the sixth Regional Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in the Americas. The meeting will be held in Cartagena, Columbia from June 18-22.

The meeting aims to review experiences, progress and challenges in reducing the risk of disasters in the region and advance sustainable development through enhanced resilience to disasters in the Americas, Minister of State, Joseph Harmon said at a post-Cabinet press briefing today.

The meeting is being held by the National Unit of Disaster Risk Management of Columbia in collaboration with the United Nations Office of Disaster Reduction along with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

The upcoming meeting will also examine monitoring tools and mechanisms used to report on the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction for the period 2015-2030.

The government has invested heavily in disaster risk reduction for resilience, particularly, in low-lying regions. The CDC has completed regional plans for most regions across the country.

The development of a regional plan enables the CDC to create risk profiles of each region which identifies the region’s vulnerability and hazards.

Meanwhile, Guyana will also attend an Outlook Forum on the Caribbean 2018 Hurricane Season. The meeting is being held by the Caribbean Institute for Metrology and Hydrology in Barbados from May 24-25.

The focus will be on disaster risk management in anticipation of the upcoming hurricane season as well as establishing a roadmap and plan of action to support a number of socio-economic sectors in the region.

 

By: Tiffny Rhodius.