Ronald Jackson (centre), Executive Director of CDEMA, along with Khin-Sandi Lwin (right), UNICEF Representative in the Eastern Caribbean Area, as they signed the MOU to Pre-position Emergency Supplies for the Eastern Sub-Region. Also present was Joanne Persad, Programme Manager for Preparedness and Response with the CDEMA Coordinating Unit.
The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) and UNICEF Eastern Caribbean have cemented their partnership by signing a MOU to pre-position emergency supplies for the Eastern Sub-Region, led by Antigua and Barbuda.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed recently by CDEMA’s Executive Director, Ronald Jackson and Khin-Sandi Lwin, UNICEF’s Representative in the Eastern Caribbean Area, at CDEMA Headquar-
ters in Lower Estate, St. Michael.
As the 2017 Hurricane Season opened up, the two agencies entered into the agreement to pre-position emergency supplies closer to central and northern parts of Caribbean islands, thus extending the outreach and ensuring timely delivery of emergency supplies to affected communities in the aftermath of any natural disasters. The agreement, will also see CDEMA and UNICEF jointly working to increase the resilience of schools.
“Preparedness is at the heart of what we are about to sign, the pre-propositioning of supplies closer to where they may be needed. For many years, we always pre-positioned emergency supplies here at the office in Barbados, realising that if something more was to hit the northern islands, we would not be able to get supplies up there quickly. So based on the partnership we have with CDEMA, we are pre-positioning supplies in Antigua and Barbuda. That is really a true synergy of our relative strengths,” the UNICEF Rep remarked.
“CDEMA has a network of contacts and facilities and the clout to move things along, so for example, at the courtesy of the Regional Security System, some of the supplies here have been transshipped to Antigua, free of charge and we truly appreciate that,” she added.
Lwin also noted that the biggest part of the cooperation will be safe and resilient schools and ensuring the education sector is doing what it can to protect children and as such, there will be a heavy emphasis not only on ensuring preparedness for disasters in schools in Antigua and Barbuda, but also across the region. (RSM)