THE BAHAMAS WILL the host the Caribbean Conference on Comprehensive Disaster Management (CCCDM) in December, according to a statement issued by the Barbados-based Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA).
The December 4 to 9 conference is regarded as the region’s premier event on disaster risk management and is the Caribbean’s largest gathering of professionals and experts in the field of disaster risk management.
“It is one single space where experts from across priority sectors and key thematic areas meet and share knowledge on best practices. Comprehensive Disaster Management (CDM) is the region’s brand of Disaster Risk Management and contributes to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), a blue print for global actions in DRR,” CDEMA said in a statement.
The conference will be held under the theme The Road To Resilience: CDM Check Point 2017 – Building Resilience Through Partnerships and CDEMA said it is an endorsed regional event of the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) and is structured to strategically influence niche audiences, promote good practice, share on-going research and chart the way forward for the advancement of CDM in the Caribbean.
A highlight of the four-day conference will be the “Jeremy Collymore Award for Research in Humanitarian Response and Disaster Risk Management” that seeks to support innovative and insightful research for improved emergency response and Disaster Risk Management (DRM) in the CDEMA participating states. The Award will be presented biennially, commencing this year.Â
Collymore was the first coordinator of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency (CDERA) established in 1991 as the lead Caribbean Community (CARICOM) regional agency for disaster emergency response coordination.
One of his major pioneering achievements included championing and leading the paradigm shift of regional disaster management thinking from a response tradition to CDM “a proactive and holistic perspective encompassing all hazards, all sectors of society, the disaster management cycle and all people”.
The adoption of the CDM approach by CARICOM in 1991 resulted in Collymore overseeing the transition of CDERA to CDEMA in 2009 and being appointed as the first executive director, a position he held until 2013. (CMC)
