This is for me a most rare occasion, to have come to Timehri and not preparing to board a flight. The demands on me as the Secretary-General of CARIFORUM – CARICOM and Dominican Republic) have had me traveling frequently through this airport. However, though not traveling today the activity in which I am involved, is tied in some small way to making those flights safer!

On 17 December 2003 I had the pleasure of signing on behalf of CARIFORUM, a Financing Agreement with the European Commission, which gave effect to a commitment from the 9th European Development Fund (EDF) of more than 13 million Euros (over 18 million US Dollars). That commitment was for the construction of four weather radar stations in CARIFORUM Member States. The signing of that Agreement was in furtherance of the European Union’s continued engagement with the Caribbean, as a valued partner in the quest for the sustainable development of our Region.

The Regional Weather Radar Warning System, as the project was officially titled, was recognized as vital to the Region. It made available a weather radar network to provide early warning and monitoring of hurricanes, tropical storms, and other severe tropical weather that endanger life, destroy property, retard industry, and generally adversely affect the development of the Region.

This Guyana Doppler Weather Radar is one of the components of this regional project. The other weather radars are located in Barbados, Belize, and Trinidad and Tobago. When these four are added to five additional weather radars already in existence in the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guiana, they combine to complete the wider Caribbean Basin Weather Radar Network.

These powerful new radars, built in Germany, will provide continuous radar surveillance of all weather at various ranges, and up to a distance of 400 kilometers (250 miles) in all directions.

One effect would be that the weather data would be made available to the public via the Internet. This, ladies and gentlemen, evidently represents a quantum leap for the Region, in terms of the early warning capability in the field of Meteorology.

The expected cost savings in terms of damage prevention and reduction accruing from the new weather radar system, are estimated at 7 million Euros (or about 10 million United States Dollars) per year.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the majority of CARIFORUM Member States are by geography and demography, mini-states, with all the resource limitations that accompany such a condition. In the face of such limitations, the objective of sustainable development becomes more difficult to achieve in the wake of destructive natural forces. Therefore, the ability to predict and monitor hurricanes and the value there from is critical, given the well-known damage that such systems can inflict. One only has to refer to Hurricane Ivan and its effects on Grenada to understand that reality.

Further, the growing reality of Climate Change, with its well chronicled effects, including more intense storms, makes it imperative that every advantage which the Region can be afforded to better prepare for that which it cannot avoid, must be truly welcomed. In this regard, the advocacy and determined efforts of the Chairman of the Community, His Excellency Bharrat Jagdeo, President of Guyana and the Honourable Stephenson King, the Head of Government with lead responsibility in the Community for the Environment were outstanding at the recent meetings in New York, USA on the issue of Climate Change.

Against this background, let me take this opportunity to express the Community’s sorrow at the wave of destruction wrought on Asia by the forces of nature in the past week. To the Governments and peoples of all the countries in that Region but in particular, Indonesia, The Phillipines and the Samoas, we empathise with them and wish them a speedy recovery from these tragic events. We in the CARIFORUM Region are only too well aware of the challenges that these phenomena bring.

These facts should serve to re-position disaster preparedness and mitigation as vital elements in planning within key sectors of the national and regional economies, in particular agriculture, tourism and transportation, three of the most important sectors in terms of contribution to Gross Domestic Product, employment and overall social and economic development.

Furthermore in an era when competitiveness must become the mantra by which we live and through which we prosper, disaster preparedness and mitigation mechanisms must play a fundamental role.

Moreover assisting as it can in making air and sea transport safer through alerting the carriers more precisely of the prevailing and impending weather conditions, its critical importance is further emphasised. This, latter, is an area in which I have the most personal interest!

Before closing, I wish to take this opportunity on behalf of the Member States of CARIFORUM to acknowledge with gratitude, the various interventions of some key international organizations that have all served to make this regional endeavour a success. These organizations include the European Commission, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the United States Department of Commerce and the National Hurricane Centre in Miami, Florida, USA.

The Caribbean Meteorological Organization (CMO) and the Disaster Reduction and Recovery Unit of the UNDP regional office in the Caribbean, have collaborated on another project directly linked to the Doppler Weather Radar project. That project will use the radar images provided by the new network, which would in turn be made available to natural disaster preparedness organizations and agencies in the Caribbean, such as the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA).

Finally, permit me to reiterate the profound gratitude of the Member States of CARIFORUM to the European Commission for its generous financing of the construction of this important project. We look forward to the benefits which it will produce for the people of our Region.

I thank you.

CONTACT: piu@caricom.org