CARICOM and Disaster Preparedness

We're well into the 2007 hurricane season, and all I got was a lousy brochure from some obscure department of the Trinidad and Tobago government which said the same things that the radio and television have said - it didn't say much about 'preparedness', it spoke more of 'if it really hits the fan, make sure you can find this brochure when the winds blow the common sense out of your head'.

Thanks.

So I decided to open my eyes to the topic again - after all, I've written about CARICOM inadequacies when it comes to disasters so much that I honestly have been sick of it. It is such a dull topic because nothing really happens. So I and came up with... OK. I'll share it.

The Bahamas doesn't like CSME, but their Minister in Parliament says:

Mitchell reiterates, "We have long been participants in the University of the West Indies, in the Council of Legal Education, in Caribbean Emergency Disaster Relief Agency, in many of the other Caricom bodies that look after the welfare of the Caribbean people.

The concerns of the Bahamas are pretty well founded because of who they trade with, and the Caribbean Emergency Disaster Relief Agency is always a nice point to bring up. But what have they actually done? Nothing there.

Next article. Trinidad and Tobago is a disaster in its own right; expanding that throughout the region is interesting. Still, that isn't what I'm looking for.

Next article. Refreshing the call for a disaster fund. Jackpot:

Like a song permanently stuck on repeat, we find ourselves reiterating the same tune, as we ponder the unforeseen prospects of what has been forecast to be quite an active hurricane season.

The notes ring familiar, as we are again forced to call on our governments to place on the table the urgent need for the establishment of a pre and post hurricane disaster fund. For several years, a few of our leaders across the region have paid mere lip service for such an emergency facility. To their convenience it seems, and when appropriate, the lips of our political leaders begin spilling the usual rhetoric that the region needs to be safeguarded by the financial support of the more developed countries through the establishment of such a fund...

...The time has come and long past for the territories of the Caribbean to develop a forceful position on this issue as the region stands to lose too much by way of infrastructure, human life and worthy possessions to the powerful weather systems. Recovery is usually a difficult and long road, especially for those territories that do not have immediate access to the necessary resources to pump into mitigation and the rebuilding process.

In many countries that are hit by these disasters, their programmes of social and infrastructural development are set back by years, and many families are left struggling to recoup what little may remain and fighting to get back on their feet. The countries of the Caribbean are indeed vulnerable because it is not only the structures of home that weaken under the strength of these storms, but the very foundations of our economies also stand to be wiped out.

Assistance is therefore needed and in tangible forms, that would provide meaningful support to the mitigation and recovery process of the Caribbean.

Good to find some of the choir there in Antigua and Barbuda. Still, the focus on money always bothers me. 'Funds', as we call them, don't necessarily mean 'something good will happen'. Governments and agencies often toss around how much money has been spent, but if money were the currency we were interested in these agencies wouldn't be asking for money in the first place. Our currency in this regard should be human lives and quality of life, not how much money is donated or spent. Spare me your accountants, show me that they earned their keep instead.

Next - a pledge from CARICOM to Jamaica if Hurricane Dean hit them. These things sound really great, but... pledges are slow to cash at the bank. Shouldn't there be a standing pledge on all of this anyway? Shouldn't there be important things on standby during hurricane season? Of course there should be.

Good to their word, Hurricane Dean got some to open their wallets - but take a look where relief supplies are coming from: Spain, Brazil, Venezuela and Canada. CARICOM? Financial assistance. Cheque is in the mail.

So - nothing has changed except the Bureaucracy Counter.