Captain Stephen Russell, director of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) recently attended the Sixth Meeting of the Technical Advisory Committee of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) in Bridgetown, Barbados.

During the meeting held April 16-17 CDEMA provided an overview of the 2014-2024 Comprehensive Disaster Management (CDM) Strategy, in which it continues to seek Participating States support to buy into and integrate into key sectors of government.

CDEMA presented its Corporate Plan for the period 2014-2017, which outlines how the organization proposes to conduct its business over the said period.

It was noted that CDEMA continues to face severe financial challenges, as less than 30 per cent of the annual contributions from the 18 participating states (The Bahamas being a member) have been received.

However, CDEMA is still actively engaging local, regional and international partners to assist with financing Disaster Risk Reduction programmes within the various participating states.

Meanwhile, CDEMA is aiming to develop a Monitoring and Evaluation Policy. This seeks to provide the agency and participating states with a set of guidelines to further integrate the Comprehensive Disaster Management Strategy 2014-2024 into the various sectors, country/agency work programmes, or donor funded programmes.

CDEMA is also seeking to establish a Regional Training Centre (RTC): the purpose would be to serve as a clearinghouse for all disaster training programmes being offered in the region, with a view of ensuring standardization, verification, accreditation and certification.

At the conclusion of the CDEMA TAC meeting, all participating states were advised to continue improving their state of preparedness for the 2015 Atlantic Hurricane Season.

Action to be taken by NEMA coming out of the regional meeting is to follow-up on the $665,000 grant being made available by the Caribbean Development Bank that could be used for the Disaster Risk Reduction programmes in The Bahamas.

Also:
• NEMA is to also follow up on the Country Directed Fund of $70,000 being offered by the European Union for Disaster Risk Reduction programme in The Bahamas;

• NEMA to continue working with the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology to finalize the School Disaster Plan Implementation Process;

• NEMA will aim to continue to integrate the CDEMA’s Comprehensive Disaster Management Strategy into key sectors in The Bahamas

• NEMA will review its Information Communication and Technology (ICT) with a view of improving in accordance with CDEMA’s ICT Assessment of the agency

• NEMA will continue to incorporate into its Disaster Risk Reduction Programmes strategies that mitigate negative effects of climate change.