Good evening, it is a pleasure to be here in Antigua and Barbuda and an even greater pleasure to deliver brief remarks at this opening ceremony of the Caribbean Regional Symposium on Agriculture Insurance.

Ladies and gentlemen, we in the Caribbean know the reality of living with risk. The plethora of traditional hazards which we face – natural and man-made, including floods, drought, hurricanes and other tropical systems, landslides, earthquakes, fires – and the list goes on - has been further compounded by trans-boundary threats. The latter, inclusive of climate change and its potential implications, biological threats, in the case of the agricultural sector such as foot and mouth disease, have necessitated us to urgently revisit the way we do business as sectors, as sovereign states and as a region.

Our risk experience has taught us harsh lessons of how hard fought developmental progress is reversed by just one event. From Hurricane David in 1979 to the drought of 2009/2010, three decades of repeated losses have resulted in damage to the estimated value of between US$700Million and 3.3 Billion dollars in direct and indirect costs from extreme weather events alone (IDB). These losses have affected our productive sectors and livelihoods have brought us to the necessary position that managing risk is a development issue and demands from us as policy makers the reflection of this position in our decision making, national policies and programmes.

Complicating the landscape is the phenomena of climate change and its potential implications for increasing both the frequency and intensity of the hydro-meteorological hazards with which we are all familiar. CDEMA’s position on this is clear. Disaster risk management must be viewed as the launching pad for engaging our sector partners in dialogue on the consequences of climate change and for undertaking associated adaptation actions. Within our agricultural communities, the realities of current day climate variability provides a much needed entry point for making the link to sustainability of current livelihoods, and it also provides a mechanism for generating the buy-in necessary for full participation. The 2009 – 2010 drought is one such example.

The reality of non-traditional threats also demands that we step outside of our comfort zones to engage in interactions with varied actors on dynamic issues. This week’s symposium is a tangible demonstration of this evolution where scientists, insurance partners, disaster managers and agricultural practitioners have come together to seek common solutions to challenges which transcend our disciplines. It therefore requires a revisit of national and regional governance arrangements to meet these dynamic needs. Arrangements which allow us to collectively harness expertise and knowledge to advance disaster risk management.

This symposium comes at a juncture where CDEMA has been operating under its expanded Comprehensive Disaster Management mandate (CDM) for a mere ten months. CDM challenges us to give consideration to all hazards, empower all sectors and build a culture of safety. The mainstreaming of disaster risk management at the sectoral level is one of the priority outcome areas of the regional CDM strategy. A strategy which has been broadly embraced at the national level within the CDEMA Participating States and at the regional level through adoption at the level of the CARICOM Council for Trade and Economic Development - COTED.

CDM and its associated governance mechanism which embraces the concept of sector led disaster risk management mainstreaming is pioneering and offers a structure within which these complex interactions can take place. Our collective efforts in mainstreaming disaster risk management into the agricultural sector through the vehicle of the regional Jagdeo initiative is a tangible demonstration of the CDM philosophy of sector led mainstreaming and sector empowerment to achieve the CDM objectives. This arrangement gives our work an institutional root within the priorities of the Caribbean Community. Through this partnership, we have worked together to elaborate a work programme and with the support of the Food and Agriculture Organization, CDEMA is undertaking a study on praedial larceny which will shortly deliver concrete recommendations for alleviating this constraint.

In this regard, CDEMA wishes to thank the Government of Antigua and Barbuda through the Honourable Hilson Baptiste for his sterling leadership of this joint initiative over the past year. Minister, we consider you a true champion of our cause.

As we dialogue over the next three days, the importance of finding solutions for risk transfer options in the agricultural sector is real. We must keep in perspective the restricted hazards scope and specific triggers associated with other transfer mechanisms such as the CCRIF and not be lulled into a false sense of security. In addition, however, we must be ever mindful that that risk transfer (inclusive of agricultural risk insurance) is but one within the suite of options for the agricultural sector. Our national level policies and programmes must also integrate broader hazard mitigation measures which reflect a shift in our approach – It is NOT business as usual.

Let me express appreciation to the Government of Australia, through AUS AID who have provided the resources which enabled CDEMA to offer support to 15 participants at this symposium. That these participants have been selected from farmers associations across the region is strategic, since within CDM, building community resilience starts at the ground level. For the agricultural sector, the farming community is key to creating that ground swell of awareness which propels pressure for change. Our expectations of you are therefore high and we anticipate that you will be advocates for change within your spheres of influence.

Let me close by inviting you to join me in expressing our deepest appreciation to the Government of Antigua and Barbuda for its hosting and logistical support for this Conference. In addition we wish to thank our co-organizers of the event, the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI); the CARICOM Secretariat and the World Bank, who have worked to ensure that this event has come to fruition. CDEMA pledges its continued commitment to working side-by-side our agriculture sector partners in support of the Jagdeo Initiative and to empowering this sector to drive the mainstreaming process. We at CDEMA are confident that this symposium’s outcomes which will demonstrate that we are not about business as usual. I thank you.

CONTACT: piu@caricom.org