UK stands by Dominica to build back better after hurricanes


British High Commissioner to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, Janet Douglas with President Charles Savarin earlier this week

The UK government has reaffirmed its commitment to support Dominica to build back better following the destruction caused by Hurricane Maria.

British High Commissioner to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, Janet Douglas, recently visited areas around Pichelin and Geneva which will benefit from planned, UK-funded improvements to water systems and roads. She also reiterated UK support to help Dominica realise its vision of becoming the first climate resilient country in the world.

The UK is providing a total of £50.7 million in grant funding to Dominica for priority infrastructure projects. This includes a newly-agreed £25 million grant to transform the badly-damaged water sector across the island, after Hurricane Maria left 97% of the population without clean water. This new project, implemented by the Caribbean Development Bank through the existing UK Caribbean Infrastructure Fund, will redesign and reconstruct Dominica’s water supply, building back better infrastructure which is more resilient to future extreme weather events.

The UK is also providing a £25.7 million grant to rehabilitate the Loubiere-Bagatelle road, the primary link between Roseau and many southern communities, which was further damaged during Hurricane Maria. The UK is working closely with the Government of Dominica, and the Caribbean Development Bank, to progress work for both projects, which will also take account of environmental, gender and other social issues (including the needs of disabled people).

Visiting Pichelin to view the water supply intake for Grand Bay and Soufriere, which was completely washed away by the hurricane, Mrs. Douglas said:

“I am proud that the UK is providing vital support for Dominica’s ongoing recovery, following the devastating impact of Hurricane Maria. This has highlighted the importance of helping Commonwealth partners like Dominica, who are disproportionately affected by climate change, to find robust and sustainable ways to cope with future extreme weather events. It is crucial that we support Dominica to build back better, and the UK is committed to helping them to achieve this goal.”

During her visit, High Commissioner Douglas also discussed UK support for the Climate Resilience Execution Agency of Dominica (CREAD) with Prime Minister Skerrit. The Agency was established after the hurricanes to help co-ordinate and manage hurricane reconstruction efforts. Following this meeting, Prime Minister Skerrit said:

“I want to thank the British Government for its commitment to us and for your exceptional show of support and kindness. The guidance on CREAD has been remarkable and DFID has provided an unbelievable amount of support following the hurricane.”

In response to the devastation caused by Hurricanes Irma and Maria, the UK has provided £185m across the Caribbean, to Commonwealth partner countries and UK Overseas Territories. This includes £7m of immediate humanitarian assistance to Dominica, providing local communities with food, water, emergency shelter, roofing materials, timber, hygiene kits and seeds and fertiliser. RFA Mounts Bay and HMS Ocean (the Royal Navy flagship) also deployed to Dominica in September 2017, to deliver relief supplies to remote communities using their helicopter airlift capacity.

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22 Comments

  1. Rassheed
    February 26, 2018

    Does England really care? Look we have a “president” but not according to the people’s wishes. The colonial games continue. Now, they don’t have to force it on us; We are now 100% willing to be, “whatever.”

  2. Me
    February 25, 2018

    Does Charlo use Grecian 2000 ?

  3. Man bites dogs
    February 24, 2018

    My bad little darling, you so stupid am bitting you and you don’t know woof woof poof poof

  4. Roy
    February 22, 2018

    Good, let’s get on with it. The hurricane season is only five months away

  5. February 22, 2018

    @ my bad I wish I could give you a million likes. You hit the nail right on the head. Only in Dominica ?? Same old same old but PM and company can’t tell the people what they’re doing with all the monies being received on Dominica behave ??

    • KID ON THE STREET
      February 24, 2018

      Are you for real??? Do you know that Dominica is recovering quicker than Barbuda a 62 SQ Mile island? Atleast the PM for Dominica is transparent in all his transactions and yet still all of you running to Antigua to praise corruption. You are soo Dumb.

  6. dee
    February 22, 2018

    Now we all need to be thankful to all our donors .Dominica has never seen those kind of monies we seeing today .
    Comrade Mr. Prime Minister you have an opportunity now, to invest some of our money
    ”De Country Money”, along with foreign investors, if needs be, in building a cement factory, refinery or whatever it’s called, but as ”A DOMINICA INDUSTRY.
    man there must be something special about our sand, tarish,clay or whole mountains why other countries are buying that material from us cheaply ,processing it into cement and selling it back to us to now build our homes .Of course we could get to the stage where we would even export the finished products to some of these very same countries.
    There is so much that could develop from such an investment (large Scale )
    IT would take a hundred years to mine the whole of one of Dominica’s mountains flat.
    Many years ago when you step out of Antigua’s airport you could see a likkle hill (not like any one of Da’s mountains, and…

    • dee
      February 22, 2018

      that likkle hill is being mined for all kind of materials developing Antigua,
      see how nice their airport is now ,well we are people too wee , do something that generations to come will still be proud to say , i am dominican nah.
      A Cement factory would reduce the price of cement in Dominica drastically , look is now all new houses would be category 7 hurricane resilient , can you imagine the retaining walls that would be built to protect soil erosion along our roads if we could produce our own cement , safer longer lasting roads .
      No to the nay sayers , it wouldn’t be a concrete jungle as we would have the right engineers and planners in place to say leave some of our forests as it is ; Listen to the experts man . We need some Industries in that Dominica of mine .

      • dee
        February 22, 2018

        Who knows what minerals we could co-incidentally discover in the heart of one of these mountains , some unknown valuable rocks , could even be gold ,
        weh weh weh , is not dere nah ,MY Dominica would float now. all those who run away coming back to our shores wee ,
        even migrants too .

      • Radan
        February 22, 2018

        Antigua is underdeveloped. They paying for the White Elephant as an Airport you glorify.

      • dee
        February 25, 2018

        Radan
        Yes i am glorifying their white elephant .
        They can see their white elephant , they are using their white elephant .
        we are also using their white elephant , but where is our white elephant ?
        we are paying the same way ,we are paying the same cost , but have no white elephant to see or comfortably use ; Which deserves glorification?
        white elephant paid for , or paid for and no white elephant .
        What elephant is the geothermal project ?Can you see an elephant there or some other form of animal , I ask .
        would you be surprised to know hundreds of millions have been spent ( or claim to have been spent on that ),what are we reaping from the lies that has been sown ? you tell me .
        Wouldn’t you prefer that we had a modern airport , with better facilities to facilitate our travels and attract real investors to Da ?
        When will we ever see returns on the millions that has been filtered on that project , albeit a possible unsafe and dangerous undertaking to the countries…

  7. Dominican Passports
    February 22, 2018

    But Dominicans :lol: What ever happen to venezuela nor? I remember allu use to be really close back in the day when uncle chavez come and visit? I here it really bad over their now, they just like laborites their party color is red and they so dumb they keep voting the same government over and over. Now just like laborites they fleeing their country like rats in search of a better life. :mrgreen: All you should help them out it really bad over there, man eating man alive 8-O

  8. John Jay
    February 22, 2018

    I have a question. The High commissioner to not be paying a visit to the President because the term of the President expired last year and I.dont know why they haven’t selected the ex commissioner as yet because when ask to take up duty as the Commissioner of Police he said NO because he is waiting for this job. The President ter. Has expired.

  9. Gigs
    February 22, 2018

    Fair play to the britisch pm for 15 mili.thank you very mutch.

  10. My bad
    February 22, 2018

    All what the high commissioner said is well and good. However, I have never seen any human being make a good decent living on begging and depending on others. We all know Maria destroyed Dominica and if we are going to bounce back we are going to be in need of all the help we can get from our friends around the world. But the fact is, apart from begging and depending on charity, what steps are we taking? How do we convince our young people that there is hope for the future? Maria was in September and now we are almost in March, what steps our government taken to inspire hope? One of the first things he should have done is to address that 18 ministers he has in cabinet that’s is costing us an average of $3,000 each per month. Can we afford that? What are they doing? Shouldn’t it be reduced to maybe 8 ministers? Has he met with REAL farmers to see how they could assist in rebuilding our economy and the nation? All I am seeing is more dependency on others while we are doing nothing

    • Man bites dogs
      February 22, 2018

      My bad, Oh really you have a nerve writing such crap, Workers opposition leader is the biggest con man going around the world begging poor people ,if that not enough,That Man would have a tin shaking in Dominica for more money to pay his bills. By the way maria didn’t destroy Dominica it was the likes of you rat bags Workers calamity party and supporters that been doing all the damages for years. Maria just finished the work for us!!!

      • My bad
        February 22, 2018

        Your name says it all and you sure don’t deserve a response. Imagine a man biting a dog. if YOU CAN BITE A DOG WHAT WILL YOU NOT BITE? Let me stop because your name gives me the impression that you might not even be a human being to bite a dog lol. Were you hungry to bite a dog? Hope it was not a female dog

      • Man bites dogs
        February 24, 2018

        My bad little darling, you so stupid am bitting you and you don’t know woof woof poof poof

      • Man bites dogs
        February 24, 2018

        My bad little darling I’m bitting you and you don’t know woof woof woof poof poof.

    • The one and Only
      February 22, 2018

      “My bad” I had no idea that someone could type so much garbage all at once

    • KID ON THE STREET
      February 24, 2018

      My Bad, what a load of Cow Manure.

    • February 25, 2018

      I wish you were at least a little wrong. But no, you are so right!

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