The Third Regional Strategy on Comprehensive Disaster Management (CDM 3) will be officially launched at the 8th Annual Conference on the subject, which will be held in Jamaica from 2 to 6 December 2013. The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) and its partners are behind this initiative.
The ECLAC Subregional headquarters for the Caribbean in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, has been working closely with the region's countries, in association with the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
In September this year, the Subregional headquarters organized an expert group meeting and training workshop on the use of information and communications technologies (ICTs) for disaster risk management (DRM), bringing together Caribbean directors of disaster management agencies, DRM and ICT professionals, trainers and representatives from the Caribbean Association of National Telecommunication Organizations (CANTO).
The workshop provided participants with an overview of disaster risk management focusing on matching ICTs with identified DRM information needs in the context of the Caribbean. It also examined existing technological applications, plus the benefits as well as the barriers in their use. Attended by 15 government officials from Caribbean countries, the workshop helped build capacities of participating government officials to improve disaster risk management using ICTs at the national and sub-regional levels in the Caribbean.
The workshop was based on an initiative of ESCAP's Asian and Pacific Training Centre for Information and Communication Technology for Development (APCICT).
The Academy of ICT Essentials for Government Leaders aims to equip government officials and policymakers with the essential knowledge and skills to leverage ICTs for national and regional socioeconomic development.
The Academy has been rolled out in 27 countries in Asia and the Pacific region, and is available in 12 languages. The workshop at the ECLAC Subregional headquarters in Port-of-Spain represented the first of its kind in the Latin America and Caribbean region.
A full report on the expert group meeting is now available. Moreover, the recommendations that came out of the meeting - including several that related to telecommunications - have been incorporated into a broader ECLAC study on the use of ICTs for disaster risk management in the Caribbean, which will be released soon.
