His Excellency Mr. Per Eklund
Deputy Secretary-General, Ambassador Lolita Applewhaite
Assistant Secretary-General Ambassador Irwin La Rocque

Once again, it is a great pleasure for me as Secretary-General of CARIFORUM to be participating in a signing ceremony with a representative of the European Union.  Ambassador Eklund, thank you very much for your statement.

In early May of this year, right here in Turkeyen, Guyana, Ambassador Per Eklund, Head of the European Delegation to this Member State in the Region and I signed a financing agreement for support to the Caribbean Knowledge and Learning Network (CKLN).

Today, the spirit of our cooperation is taken another step further with the signing of the Financing Agreement for Institutional Support and Capacity Building for Disaster Management in the Caribbean. This time, the support goes to another of our key regional institutions, the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency (CDERA).

The CARICOM Region, as part of its regional integration and cooperation policies, has decided to pursue its Comprehensive Disaster Management (CDM) strategy and framework through CDERA, a specialised agency established and supported by Caribbean governments and tasked with the coordination of regional disaster management activities. Among its main functions are the elimination as far as possible of the consequences of disasters affecting participating states and the establishment and maintenance on a sustainable basis of adequate disaster response capabilities among participating states - a tall order, indeed, for a region as prone as ours to regular hurricanes, floods, landslides and occasional volcanic eruptions. Hurricane Ivan in September 2004, striking Grenada, and the January 2005 flood in Guyana, are examples of the physical vulnerability of the Region.

The proposed €3.4 million project is intended to strengthen and increase CDERA’s effectiveness and improve its coordination within the Region, including the non-English speaking Caribbean countries; review and revise existing disaster management legislation with the view to establishing appropriate legislation where needed; set up and support national awareness and management campaigns in collaboration with government agencies, NGOs and other parties working in this area; increase the use of ICTs for emergency planning, thereby making CDM more effective and its capacity enhanced for management and related teaching and research through exchange studies and other research in this field.

Economic, social, and environmental consequences of disasters are long-lasting, and rehabilitation costs are a high percentage of gross national product in CARIFORUM countries.  This sort of external support is required since governments have to cope with such disasters while at the same time, trying to solve chronic economic problems of high unemployment, fiscal balance of payments deficits and declining living standards. This has created a vicious cycle in which funds earmarked for development activities have had to be redirected to respond to natural disasters and humanitarian relief.

The assistance rendered therefore by this financing agreement will doubtlessly serve not only to strengthen the CDERA, and by extension the human resource capacity of our Region, but moreso to underwrite our economic and social development.

I thank you.