Chair­man of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (CARI­COM), Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley has wel­comed the launch of the Caribbean Re­gion­al Lo­gis­tics Hub and Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence say­ing it will sig­nif­i­cant­ly strength­en the re­gion’s abil­i­ty to re­spond quick­ly to dis­as­ters and hu­man­i­tar­i­an crises.

Mot­t­ley, the Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter, told the cer­e­mo­ny at the Grant­ley Adams In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port that Bar­ba­dos is an ide­al lo­ca­tion for the hub giv­en that it “is the most east­er­ly, [there­fore] a judg­ment was made that this is prob­a­bly the safest place.

“If you have to wait on stuff to come from Pana­ma, that’s 1200 miles away. If you have to bring stuff from Mi­a­mi, 1500 miles away,”  she said, not­ing that the pri­ma­ry func­tion would be to get food, med­i­cine and crit­i­cal sup­plies to af­fect­ed pop­u­la­tions with­in the first 48 to 72 hours af­ter a ma­jor emer­gency.

“This hub is about sav­ing lives. Let’s be very, very clear,” she told the cer­e­mo­ny on Mon­day that was at­tend­ed by rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the diplo­mat­ic corps, re­gion­al agen­cies and in­ter­na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment part­ners.

“It is not just lim­it­ed to emer­gency re­spons­es for dis­as­ters. It is al­so go­ing to be for hu­man­i­tar­i­an crises,”  Mot­t­ley said, not­ing the “ut­ter­ly dev­as­tat­ing sit­u­a­tion in Haiti” where “al­most half the pop­u­la­tion is deemed to be suf­fer­ing from food in­se­cu­ri­ty”.

The hub is equipped with 2500 square me­tres of stor­age space, 1300 pal­let po­si­tions, and tem­per­a­ture-con­trolled cold stor­age. It was de­vel­oped by the Unit­ed Na­tions World Food Pro­gramme (WFP) in part­ner­ship with the Bar­ba­dos gov­ern­ment with fund­ing sup­port from Cana­da, the Eu­ro­pean Union, Unit­ed States Agency for In­ter­na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment (US­AID)  and the Church of Je­sus Christ of Lat­ter-day Saints.

WFP’s Re­gion­al Di­rec­tor for Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, Lo­la Cas­tro, said the launch was a crit­i­cal step in im­prov­ing emer­gency re­sponse in a re­gion vul­ner­a­ble to mul­ti­ple haz­ards.

“Hav­ing seen how dev­as­tat­ing hur­ri­canes and oth­er haz­ards can be in the Caribbean, we are proud to have this Caribbean Re­gion­al Lo­gis­tics Hub in place. WFP works with part­ners in the re­gion and glob­al­ly to en­hance na­tion­al re­sponse mech­a­nisms to im­prove the ef­fi­cien­cy and ef­fec­tive­ness of dis­as­ter re­sponse in or­der to save lives,” she said.

The ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of the Bar­ba­dos-based Caribbean Dis­as­ter Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (CDE­MA), Eliz­a­beth Ri­ley, de­scribed the hub as the re­al­i­sa­tion of a long-stand­ing vi­sion that be­gan dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

“This trans­for­ma­tive ini­tia­tive marks a crit­i­cal ad­vance­ment in the re­gion’s ca­pac­i­ty to re­spond swift­ly and ef­fec­tive­ly to emer­gen­cies through the Re­gion­al Re­sponse Mech­a­nism,” Ri­ley said, not­ing that CDE­MA ac­ti­va­tions have surged, from two be­tween 2000 and 2009 to eight in the last five years alone, with 84 per cent trig­gered by cli­mate-re­lat­ed haz­ards.

She added that the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence housed with­in the fa­cil­i­ty will play a key role in build­ing the ca­pac­i­ty of dis­as­ter re­spon­ders across the re­gion through train­ing, sim­u­la­tion, and shared prac­tice.

BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos, May 27, CMC –

CMC/gh/ir/2025