Strengthening resilience capacities of CARIFORUM countries
The Natural Disaster Risk Management (NDRM) Programme is an initiative of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States, funded by the European Union to support disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA) activities in the Caribbean Region.
Launched in July 2014, this initiative is being co-implemented by the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), and the Government of the Dominican Republic. The NDRM Programme is part of a long-established co-operation effort aimed to bring together partner entities from African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries that are actively involved in disaster and climate change management.
The programme’s main objective is to help reduce vulnerability to the long-term impacts of natural hazards, including the potential impacts of climate variability and change (CVC). It is also expected to achieve regional and national sustainable development and poverty reduction goals in the Caribbean Forum (CARIFORUM) countries. Towards the achievement of its objectives, the NDRM seeks to strengthen regional, national and community capabilities to deal with natural hazards and the effects of CVC through coordinated interventions and timely responses.
NDRM Programme’s support:
This initiative brings with it significant additional benefits not only for participating countries, but also for the entire Caribbean community. These include:
- Increased awareness among co-ordinating agencies and citizens of CARIFORUM countries and other international communities of the importance of natural disaster risk management programmes;
- Stronger levels of resilience to the potential impact of natural hazards and climatic events;
- The promotion of dialogue and exchange between public authorities and communities in order to achieve the proper implementation of the Programme’s projects.
The European Union strategy
The NDRM Programme is also essential to deliver on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the United Nations call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity.
Specifically, it addresses Goal 13 of the EU’s Sustainable Development Agenda, focusing on taking urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. To achieve this, the EU has identified five (5) core objectives:
- Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters in all countries.
- Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies and planning.
- Improve education, awareness-raising, and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning.
- Implement the commitment undertaken by developed-country parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to a goal of jointly mobilizing $100 billion per year by 2020 from all sources, to address the needs of developing countries in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation, and making the Green Climate Change Fund fully operational through prompt capitalisation.
- Promote mechanisms to raise capacity for effective climate change-related planning and management in least developed countries and small island developing states, including focusing on women, youth and local and marginalized communities.
