Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of five Caribbean coun­tries are this week gath­er­ing in Port-of-Spain to dis­cuss dis­as­ter risk man­age­ment (DRM) strate­gies for the en­tire re­gion.

Del­e­ga­tions from An­tigua, Bar­ba­dos, Ja­maica and Montser­rat are par­tic­i­pat­ing in a two-day course with TT coun­ter­parts at the Carl­ton Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain.

The course is part of a co­or­di­nat­ed ef­fort by the Unit­ed Na­tion's Eco­nom­ic Com­mis­sion for Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (ECLAC) to in­crease the ap­pli­ca­tion of in­for­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nologiy (ICT) in dis­as­ter re­sponse and risk man­age­ment across the re­gion.

On Mon­day, a small­er Meet­ing of Ex­perts re­viewed a UN re­gion­al re­port on the use of in­for­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tions tech­nolo­gies (ICTs) for Dis­as­ter Risk Man­age­ment in the Caribbean, au­thored by for­mer iGovTT chair­man, At­i­ba Phillips.

Montser­rat Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment and Co­or­di­na­tion Agency (DM­CA) Di­rec­tor Bil­ly Dar­roux at­tend­ed the ses­sion.

"The re­port re­vealed that there is some dis­tance be­tween na­tion­al DRM strate­gies and the na­tion­al ICT strate­gies, while recog­nis­ing that ICT is a DRM tool and the use of it should be pri­ori­tised as part of dis­as­ter re­sponse," he said.

The DM­CA head al­so not­ed that in many coun­tries of the re­gion, ICT pri­or­i­ties are usu­al­ly fo­cused on da­ta man­age­ment and fi­nan­cial sys­tems.

"Most ICT plat­forms don't have a dis­as­ter risk re­duc­tion strat­e­gy and if the na­tion­al ICT struc­tures were dam­aged that could be a dis­as­ter in it­self."