Port-au-Prince, Haiti, September 22, 2014 (DPC) - The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), with the support of the Department of Civil Protection (DPC) of the Ministry of the Interior and of Territorial Assemblies (MICT) of Haiti, is conducting a workshop from September 22 to September 26, 2014, on the integration of climate change considerations into the Comprehensive Disaster Management Country Work Programme of Haiti.
“The issue of climatic changes is both a problem and a humanitarian challenge as a result of the extreme meteorological phenomena that these changes will produce and are already producing.” This situation summons the “main actors and partners of the National System for the Management of Risks and Disasters to reflect on the strategies aimed at decreasing the country’s vulnerability to natural disasters within the context of climatic changes” as stressed by the Director General of the Ministry of the Interior and of Territorial Assemblies, Mr. Hertz OBAS, in his opening remarks at the workshop organized for and convening the members of the National System for the Management of Risks and Disasters (SNGRD) in Haiti.
The Director General of the Ministry of the Environment, Mrs. Yolette Nicole Altidor reminded the participants that this workshop represents “ an important step towards the materialization of a synergy between: the understanding the risks resulting from climatic changes and the comprehensive but organized management of disasters, within the National Plan of action for adaptation to climatic changes”. She seized the opportunity to inform the participants that with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the Ministry of the Environment will soon be training officers of the Haitian Public Administration as well as from the University sector in using software on climatic scenarios.
Some twenty participants from the key SNGRD Ministries, from the Haitian Red Cross, from Civil Society, from the private sector (DIGICEL), from the Alliance for the Management of Hazards and for Business Continuity (AGERCA), from the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), from the United States’ Office for Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID-OFDA), as well as SNGRD support projects financed by The European Union, by the World Bank and by UNDP have attended the workshop.
Throughout the five days (5) during which this workshop will last, the participants will have to identify challenges and constraints towards facing natural and man-made threats within the Caribbean region, and to make recommendations towards implementing short and mid-term activities that include options for adaption to climatic changes to be included in the CDM Country Work Programme.
This workshop benefitted by the financial support of the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) through the Mainstreaming Climate Change into Disaster Management, Phase 2 (CCDM-II) and United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID), Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (DFATD), and Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (AFATD) through the Comprehensive Disaster Management Harmonized Implementation Programme (CDM-HIP) for Institutional support to the Caribbean Centre for the Management of (CDEMA) Disasters provided to the member States.
Please see here french version of this news release