Caddle: Natural disaster resilience a priority

Government has placed the issue of natural disasters high on its list of priorities, Minister of Economic Affairs and Investment Marsha Caddle has assured.

But while cautioning that the Mia Mottley administration was “challenged to respond to every policy need”, Caddle said Government would be strengthening its engagement with development stakeholders in order to help build resilience.

She was addressing today’s opening of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) panel discussion at the Courtyard by Marriott on Assessing and Addressing the Impact of Natural Disasters.

The one-day seminar forms part of the IDB’s efforts to disseminate more of its research and promote discussion with the hemispheric development bank on natural disasters.

“We are not being dramatic when we talk about this being an existential issue, and so what it has required is for us to relook, rethink and reorient everything about the way we do our business,” Caddle said.

Stating that Barbados had failed to adequately invest in infrastructure over the past decade, coupled with “a worsening climate crisis”, Caddle said the current administration was placing significant focus on water and sanitation as part of its resilience-building efforts.

Caddle said Government’s ‘roofs to reefs programme’ was also designed to support resilience-building in the face of increased threats from natural disasters, in an effort to help make the economy “climate-proof”, protect residents and make the country more resilient.

The Minister, an economist, said: “This issue is so complete and immediate that it has meant for us that how we prioritize where we put our capital investment has had to completely change.

“So for example, because of the underinvestment that we have seen in infrastructure in the previous decade, and because the climate crisis meant an increase in severity in drought, it means that water and sanitation now have the biggest draw for us in terms of the public sector investment programme.

“It means that most of how we invest and where we invest is about the climate crisis and is about increasing the resilience to natural disaster.

“It has to be. It makes no sense to talk about your balance of payments if you do not have a country in which to function if you do not have citizens who can be productive and if you do not have economic sectors that can continue to thrive.”

Insisting that natural disasters had a significant economic implication on small island development states, Caddle said there was no way Barbados could “save up” to replace any loss due to natural disasters.

She said not only did the island need immediate liquidity after a severe weather event but also needed “to be able to build in resilience before events happen”.

“Therefore, our entire orientation as a government has been and continues to be about identifying the kinds of instruments and really carving out a financial sector in collaboration with the private sector that includes resilience in the marketplace,” said Caddle.

She said last year’s electricity blackout was also an indication of “underinvestment in the private sector”, adding that the issue of being climate-resilient was not only about building better buildings but ensuring that utility companies and other relevant private sector agencies were “ready to be able to respond to a disaster”.