Government Information Service

by Emmanuel H. Joseph
Government Information Service

The Government of Dominica has indicated its desire to accelerate efforts to strengthen the Office of Disaster Management. If there is any indication, recent events as it the Office of Disaster Management has shown such desire. Head of the Caribbean Disaster Management Response Agency (CDERA), Jerry Collymore, was on the island last week meeting with Government officials to see how best CDERA could assist the island in that process.

According to Mr. Collymore, CDERA will provide technical assistance to Dominica as there is a lot of work that needs to be done to bring Dominica up to standard.

“If we were to use the report, looking at the Organisation of East Caribbean States (OECS) in particular, Dominica will need some significant investment to bring it to the level that everybody is happy with. If you are looking at the Preparedness Index and the Emergency Response Index, in many cases, this is below the fifty percent (50%) target that we would have established. There is an opportunity to really invest in that area and coming away from this discussion with the local officials with a sense that there is a strong commitment to really action the recommendations that have come out of these reports.

I am leaving here with a strong sense of a strong commitment. Certainly, one of the things that will come out of this report that we will provide will be a multiyear programme of interventions to really address the priority areas that they will identify. This will also be accompanied by a monitoring mechanism so that we can look at the progress towards achieving those priorities that may have been agreed out of these reports.”

The CDERA head is fully supportive of a move by Government to increase the human resource capacity of the local disaster office.

“One of the things that is quite visible is that there is a commitment to deepen the staff at the Disaster Officer. You know and all Dominicans know that for a long time, that has been a crying need. It is an important first step because to be able to access and fully utilise external assistance. You need a centre to accept it to make it a sustainable raw product in terms of how you convert it to knowledge to the other stake holders who locally have to use it.”