Richard Thompson, acting director general for the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM), highlighted the necessity of Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT) while speaking during the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Disaster Risk Resilience Knowledge Exchange on Friday (May 17) at the UNDP’s Lady Musgrave Road offices in the Corporate Area..

“If something happens to you, who is the first person that will come to your aid? It’s your neighbour, if you’re neighbourly, which everyone should be,” Thompson said.

He emphasised the importance of empowering communities to respond to disasters during the first 24 hours of occurrence.

“We have been doing a lot of work within that area to ensure that the community mechanism is strong enough where there are community response teams, [and] they have a full appreciation of the population that they have to deal with — persons with disabilities, the elderly, single-mother homes — so they can respond to their needs,” the acting director general explained.

CERT supports the work of disaster preparedness and response agencies in reducing personal injuries, property loss and damage, and the interruption of business operations due to disasters while enhancing recovery capacity.

UNDP Resident Representative Kishan Khoday has pledged to increase support for resilience interventions to strengthen national capacities to mitigate climate shocks.

“The Caribbean is seven times more likely to be hit by natural disasters and sustain damage to GDP (gross domestic product) six times higher than other larger economies. This is expected to get worse, of course, in coming years with more frequent and severe climate-induced disasters unless, of course, urgent action is taken,” he advised.

The UNDP is the largest UN grant provider for climate change and environmental initiatives, implementing over $4 billion in over 140 countries and territories.