Dominica

By Deodat Maharaj, UNDP Senior Advisor for the Caribbean

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 8 2018 (IPS) - As a new hurricane season approaches in the Caribbean, I attended last week’s dialogue focused on “Financing Resilience in SIDS” held in Antigua and Barbuda and sponsored by the host government and Belgium.

The gathering sought to identify the main risks facing Small Island Developing States (SIDS), especially in terms of financing and innovative solutions to the countries’ challenges.

In many ways, 2017 was a special year seen through the lenses of mental health and psychosocial support in the IFRC. International attention has never been so strongly focused on psychosocial support at field level, in research and at policy level.

In severe crises, such as the conflicts in Syria and Yemen, the Rakhine crisis and the protracted crisis in Libya, mental health and psychosocial support is repeatedly mentioned as being key elements in the overall response.

Following the passage of two category-5 hurricanes in the Caribbean islands—Irma and Maria, the global Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC) coordinated resources under the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency’s (CDEMA) lead. ETC partners—Ericsson Response, the Government of Luxembourg and WFP — supported the response activities, deploying shared Internet services to government, humanitarians and affected populations in Dominica and Saint Martin where the infrastructure was heavily damaged.

Situation Overview

Eight months after Hurricane Maria hit the island, there are still IDPs living in collective centres. They are the most vulnerable people, with many of them being elderly or having no relatives, houses or employment and being unable to pay a rent or other housing costs. The majority of the existing Buildings pre-identified for emergency shelter require improvements.

15 times EU Civil Protection Mechanism (EUCPM) provided environmental expertise to UN Environment/OCHA Joint Unit (JEU) since 2014.

• EUCPM prepares and responds to environmental disasters, including incidents that arise as secondary effects of a natural disaster.

• DG ECHO, operating through the EUCPM, is among JEU’s most important partners.

• DG ECHO's collaboration with the JEU has been constantly increasing during the past years, raising at a level of 50% of all JEU missions since 2016.

The hurricane season began for the Pacific on May 15 and for the Atlantic it is expected to begin on June 1. However, the first Atlantic storm was identified on Friday, May 25 with the name of Alberto.

Latin America and the Caribbean are one of the regions most prone to disasters due to tropical storms and hurricanes that regularly devastate coastal communities and often cause landslides and floods.

OVERVIEW

This report analyses data collected from interviews conducted with 483 Dominicans between 14 and 20 May 2018. In this fifth survey of Dominicans' perceptions in the wake of Hurricane Maria, we dig deeper into the issues that are central to the recovery process now underway. These relate to people’s access to information and, with so many homes lost or damaged by the hurricane, shelter and reconstruction.

Information

Plan Includes Fixing Churches and Homes and Bringing a New Power Source to One Hard-Hit Community

SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO, May 29, 2018—As hurricane season approaches people across Puerto Rico are still reeling from last year’s devastating storms—Irma and Maria. That’s why international Christian relief organization Samaritan’s Purse is announcing a multi-year recovery plan aimed at rehabilitating more than 390 homes and 55 churches in central and southern Puerto Rico.

Wednesday, May 30 – The impact of the 2017 hurricane season on member states of the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) was reviewed at a two day After Action Review (AAR) meeting on May 28 and 29.

During this meeting, health representatives from the impacted countries of Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, St. Maarten, Turks and Caicos Islands and the BVI also developed a plan for improving health response in the Caribbean region.

For interview requests or additional materials, please contact Sueann Tannis, Head of Corporate Communications - mobile: +1 (246) 826-3343 or tanniss@caribank.org.

May 30, 2018, ST. GEORGE'S, Grenada – The President of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), Dr. Wm. Warren Smith, is urging regional leaders and development partners to work collaboratively and proactively to address the Region’s vulnerabilities, and to support resilience-building in the energy, agriculture and air transport sectors.

Even in this era of social media and digital technology, the tools most often used to assess disasters are…paper and pencils. With luck and at least a few months, the understandable part of those handwritten questionnaires is converted in some sort of file that, only very rarely, is put together and analyzed on time to inform recovery programmes.

A. Situation analysis

Description of the disaster

Hurricane Maria hit Dominica on 18 September 2017, bringing torrential rain and winds of up to 250 kilometers per hour (category 5), which affected the country’s 73,800 inhabitants.

Bridgetown, Barbados, April 23, 2018 (CDEMA) – During the 9th Meeting of the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), members endorsed the Revised Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems Checklist. The TAC participated in its annual meeting, which was held April 16-20 in St. Michael, Barbados.

More than twenty farmers and agricultural officers from 11 countries left the warmth of the Caribbean to tour Japan, with the hope of viewing transferable technologies. While experiencing jet-lag (picture them roaming the streets of Tokyo, Osaka and Nagano late at night because their bodies are telling them it’s lunch time in the Caribbean) and language differences, these practitioners found much to be hopeful for in the midst of the challenge climate change poses to the region.

HIGHLIGHTS

DTM flow monitoring data compiled from national authorities and IOM offices show that the number of arrivals through Mediterranean routes between January and March 2018 is half the number of arrivals in the same period in 2017. In the first quarter of 2018 a total of 1,956 migrants and asylum seekers arrived in Europe using different land and sea routes, in comparison to 34,531 registered in the first quarter of 2017. As previously reported, the decrease is mainly due to the drop in arrivals in Italy.

DOMINICA/PANAMÁ, 3 de mayo de 2018 – Los directores regionales del UNICEF y el Programa Mundial de Alimentos (WFP) para América Latina y el Caribe firmaron hoy un acuerdo para apoyar a los gobiernos de la región a estar mejor preparados y equipados para utilizar los programas de transferencias monetarias para asistir a la población durante las emergencias.

FACTS & FIGURES

2.1 million people affected by hurricane Matthew, with 546 fatalities

1 million people still need humanitarian assistance more than one year after hurricane Matthew 140 000 households still require shelter solutions.

4.4 million people acutely food insecure, of which 1.3 million people severely food insecure (October 2017, CNSA)

37 546 internally displaced people (IDPs) in 26 camps (IOM)