Building resilience

The European Union on Tuesday, May 28, launched a 28 million euro Regional Climate Resilience Building Facility, the largest grant-funded resilience-building project in the Caribbean to date. It is to be implemented by the World Bank and the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF) and will provide financial resources for technical assistance, disaster insurance and resilient investment facilitation.

The announcement was made at the ongoing Understanding Risk conference in Barbados by EU Ambassador Daniela Tramacere: “What we want from this programme is to address real needs. For this, governments and partner entities will have to define clear priorities, without which a targeted implementation is not possible.”

In addition, the EU diplomat said the action should have as its ultimate objective, the genuine interest of Caribbean citizens translated in terms of resilience building at community and individual levels.

The technical assistance aims to strengthen the capacity of public institutions and civil society organisations which are capable of protecting citizens from disasters. The support to the CCRIF will help countries cope and recover better from the effects of extreme weather events.

“The support to resilient investment will stimulate the private sector to better adapt businesses and jobs to the priority needs of countries and citizens,” she added.

The Regional Resilience Building Facility is one of the many resilience programmes being financed by the EU in the Caribbean. Additional support for countries to build societal resilience by encouraging the transition to green economies and progress towards a sustainable economic path is being provided by various other EU programmes.

The EU is also partnering with regional governments and institutions on climate adaptation and ecosystem resilience and on hydrological meteorological data gathering. (PR)