Source : http://www.cdera.org

Bridgetown, Barbados, April 6, 2009, (CDERA) - The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency (CDERA) and the University of the West Indies (UWI) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on Thursday, April 2, at the Cave Hill Campus in Barbados.

Jeremy Collymore, Coordinator of CDERA, said “the signing represents a commitment to re-establish, strengthen and formalize a partnership of engagement between the UWI and the CDERA disaster management community towards building resilient communities.”

“The CDERA/UWI MOU also reflects our commitment to building strategic alliances with regional organizations and institutions around the goal of the Comprehensive Disaster Management Strategy and Programme whose purpose is to strengthen regional, national and community level capacity for mitigation, management and coordinated response to natural and technological hazards and the effects of climate change,” Collymore added.

In particular, this partnership will establish mechanisms to strengthen the acquisition, management and dissemination of comprehensive disaster management knowledge in the Caribbean, as required under Priority Outcome Two of the CDM Strategy.

Signing of this agreement with the UWI signals the expected leadership of UWI in advancing the process of mainstreaming disaster management in the education sector.

“The UWI’s responsibility is much larger than educating and graduating students, and it needs to respond in more comprehensive ways to the challenges that exist in our societies, such as natural hazards. It is important that institutions such as ours respond to dangers that are present in our societies. We have more than 100 academics, in more than 30 sectors, who are capable of responding in event of a natural hazard, and who need to be hooked up to agencies such as CDERA,” said the Vice Chancellor, Professor E. Nigel Harris, at the signing of the MOU.

The University’s Disaster Risk Reduction Centre, which is headquartered at the Mona Campus in Jamaica, is seen as the key medium for developing the infrastructure that will deliver disaster related knowledge training, education, research and policy design to respond to the institutional capacity needs of the CDERA Participating States. Other key aspects to be advanced by this partnership include: collaborating with other regional educational and research institutions to develop a region wide network of disaster risk reduction centres of excellence; and the standardization of disaster risk reduction training, delivery and certification.

The partnership will also facilitate the provision of services and expertise to support damage assessment and recovery planning following disasters in CDERA Participating States.

For information on CDM programme please go to:
http://www.cdera.org/doccentre/publications/CDMStrategyandProgrammeFramework2007-2012.pdf