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CCRIF stands ready to assist other member countries impacted by Eta

Nicaragua is to get a pay-out of $10.7 million from the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Financing Facility (CCRIF), as a result of the damage unleashed from the recent passage of Tropical Cyclone Eta.

The Nicaraguan government has already received an advance of US$3.7 million from CCRIF, which was formed in 2017 to provide parametric insurance policies for tropical cyclones, earthquakes, excess rainfall and the fisheries sector. The balance will be paid by tomorrow, following final verification.

CCRIF provides financial resources to its 23-member strong beneficiaries to deal with the impact of natural hazard events to Caribbean and Central American governments with short-term liquidity when a disaster takes place. As usual pay-outs are made within 14 days of a disaster occurring.

Hurricane Eta made landfall just south of Puerto Cabezas, on Nicaragua’s northern Caribbean coast last week Tuesday as a Category 4 hurricane, bringing catastrophic surge, rains and winds of up to 140 mph. Eta left a trail of destruction with Nicaragua suffering severe infrastructure damage with at least 10 rivers overflowed their banks, while trees, power pylons and electrical lines were knocked down and fragile roofs were ripped off of homes.

The damage done by Eta triggered the country’s tropical cyclone and excess rainfall parametric insurance policies. Eta was described as the 29th and most powerful tropical cyclone of the 2020 Atlantic Hurricane.

Luckily, Eta affected to a lesser extent five other CCRIF member countries in Central America and the Caribbean. They are Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, Guatemala, Belize and The Bahamas.

Responding to news of the pay-out Nicaragua’s Finance Minister, Iván Acosta commented on the effectiveness of CCRIF insurance process. Acosta specially recognized what he described as the excellent work by the team at CCRIF for their effectiveness in their mission to serve the peoples of Central America and the Caribbean in their moments of greatest need, such as when member countries face a climatic or catastrophic event.

This latest pay-out by CCRIF to Nicaragua represents the third payout with the previous payouts being US$1.1 million, which disbursed following Tropical Cyclone Otto in November 2016 and US$500,000 for an earthquake, which struck in June of that year.

Nicaragua has the distinction of being the first Central American country to join CCRIF having immediately inked its signature to the 2015 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which extended the CCRIF to some Latin American countries.

CCRIF was initially established for Caribbean governments but the MOU enabled Central American countries to join the facility. The MOU was between CCRIF and the Council of Ministers of Finance of Central America, Panama and the Dominican Republic.

Two other Central American governments namely Guatemala and Panama also are members of CCRIF. Preliminary hurricane damage assessments done by Nicaragua’s National Disaster Prevention System showed that over 1,700 homes were damaged with 803 partially damaged and 77 destroyed with1,500 families being evacuated.

Some 30,000 people were forced to access shelters with some subsequent damage to shelters caused by high winds including interruptions of electric power that affected approximately 50,000 persons. The municipalities of Waspam and Puerto Cabezas were cut off due to the overflow of the Wawa River while many other communities were impacted by flooding.

CCRIF Chief Executive Officer Isaac Anthony has extended sympathies to the government and people of Nicaragua for the losses incurred due to Eta, as well as to the other member governments and other countries that were impacted by the cyclone. He indicated that CCRIF stands ready to support the governments affected in their immediate recovery and longer-term rehabilitation efforts.