Thursday, March 10 – Director of the Department of Disaster Management Ms. Sharleen DaBreo and Liaison Officer for Projects in the Premier’s Office Mr. Keith Dawson today met with Mr. Jeremy Hills, who is a member of an evaluation team contracted by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the Department for International Development (DFID) to undertake a mid-year review of the Comprehensive Disaster Management Harmonized Implementation Programme (CDM-HIP).
During the meeting Mr. Hills said, “The CDM HIP Project has already spent 35% of its allocated resources with two and a half years remaining to complete all of the desired project outputs.”
The CDM HIP is a five-year programme which commenced within the second quarter of 2008 and will conclude in March 2013. It is being implemented by the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) in partnership with the Organization for Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) and CIDA and DFID have provided funding of US$11.7M. The programme is aimed at enhancing institutional support and community resilience to mitigate, responding to and recover from the adverse affects of climate variability and change and disasters in CDEMA member states. The programme’s management structure is unique as it promotes a multi-donor harmonized approach for the support of the Regional Enhanced Comprehensive Disaster Management (CDM) Strategy.
“The Virgin Islands have received direct benefits from the programme in several areas including the use of small grants towards training in Results Based Management, work programme elaboration, national consultations and upgrading of the National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC) resources,” Ms DaBreo said.
As part of this programme the Territory has also provided support to the Turks and Caicos Islands in the provision of DDM personnel to conduct a train-the-trainer workshop in shelter management. The programme has also funded the DDM’s participation in meetings to provide guidance for the implementation of the CDEMA Work Programme and the CDM HIP Project.
Mr. Hills is employed by Envision an international environmental consultancy and research company that specialises in coastal and marine management, mapping, and data services. He is working alongside representatives from the Council for Information and Planning Alternatives, Inc out of the US Virgin Islands.
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