Photo Caption: His Excellency the Governor, Boyd
McCleary signs MOU on behalf of the Government of the Virgin Islands, and Mr.
Franco Siccardi, President of the CIMA Research Foundation International Center
of Environmental Monitoring (CIMA RF) Savona, Italy,
Friday,
June 21 – His
Excellency the Governor Mr. Boyd McCleary, CMG, CVO signed a Memorandum of
Understanding (MOU) today with the Mr. Franco Siccardi, President of the CIMA Research Foundation
International Center of Environmental Monitoring (CIMA RF) Savona, Italy, signaling
collaboration in the areas of disaster risk reduction and recovery.
The MOU,
signed in the Territory, will promote continued collaboration between the CIMA
RF and the Government of the Virgin Islands in disaster risk reduction and
recovery from environmental, natural and technological hazards particularly
within the context of climate change.
Governor
McCleary in his discussions with Mr. Siccardi this morning said, “We look
forward to future collaboration with CIMA and I am happy to be signing an
instrument that will allow for this partnership agreement to continue.”
The MOU
indicates that the collaboration will allow for implementation of disaster risk
reduction and governance strategies in areas of volunteerism, risk
communications, predictability of meteorological extremes, flood modeling,
remote sensing, data fusion and assimilation, biodiversity loss and climate
change adaptation.
In
responding to the Governor Mr. Siccardi said, “We have high expectations for
this agreement and we are happy to be signing an instrument that will allow for
continued work with the Government of the Virgin Islands. We are certain that we will be able to pursue
work in the long term.”
President
Siccardi further stated, “This MOU will provide a basis for continued
collaboration between CIMA RF and the Government of the Virgin Islands after
the ERC Project concludes in December 2013.”
The
agreement is a follow up to the Enhancing Resilience to Reduce Vulnerability in
the Caribbean Region (ERC) project which seeks to strengthen disaster
management mechanisms in the OECS Region and Barbados over the last three years.
This project
is being executed by the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology in
collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme and with technical
support from the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency and CIMA RF.
The Virgin
Islands is one of the pilot countries under this 23.5 million Euro Government
of Italy funded project. The benefits to
the Territory includes the provision of an Automatic Weather Station,
development of a Volunteer Management System and National Volunteer Online
Registry, development of desktop procedures for Damage Assessment Needs
Analysis, testing of the Cruise Ships and other Large Marine Passenger Vessels
draft procedures, conduct of a Knowledge, Aptitude and Perception study as well
as professional development in the areas of volunteerism and geographical
information systems.
