Government divisions receive ICT packages

Officials at the handing over ceremony on Friday
Officials at the handing over ceremony on Friday

ICT packages of equipment worth EC$653,000 were presented to various government divisions which are beneficiaries of the Disaster Vulnerability Reduction Project (DVRP).

The equipment was handed over to Minister of Information, Science, Telecommunications and Technology, Kelvar Darroux, by the Minister of Health and Environment, Kenneth Darroux, on Friday morning.

The Disaster Vulnerability Reduction Project, officially introduced in 2014, is an investment package to a tune of US$39.5-million with the aim of reducing vulnerability to natural hazards and climate change impacts in Dominica, through investment in resilient infrastructure, and improved hazard data collection and monitoring systems.

The project is funded by the World Bank in the form of grant and loan and implemented by the Government of the Commonwealth of Dominica under the Ministry of Health and Environment.

Minister of Health and Environment, Kenneth Darroux, explained the role of ICT in the DVRP, stating that technology, like infrastructure, must be developed in order to contribute to disaster vulnerability reduction.

“It is not all about infrastructure, and yes, ICT has everything to do with building climate resilience…the capacity building and data development, hazard risk management and evaluation, which supports the creation of relevant core data and data collection systems, as well as integrating analytic tools to permit improved decision-making and engineering design for risk reduction and climate change adaptation.”

He explained that activities under the DVRP will “support building Dominica’s capacity for analysis and assessment of risks from natural disasters and climate change—including the integration of the results of such analysis into the policy and decision-making process and development of investments and developing data collection systems. Additionally, component two [of the DVRP] will also bring about the successful creation of a robust special data management platform, early warning systems, and data collection management infrastructure that will allow Dominica to continue to improve its decision-making applications in the context of disaster risk reduction, and climate adaptation…”

Meantime, Minister of Information and Technology, Kelvar Darroux, highlighted the need to make a conscious effort to reduce Dominica’s vulnerability to disasters—not only in infrastructure, but in technology as well.

“It has become necessary not only to build on our physical infrastructure, but to ensure that the necessary telecommunications and technology infrastructure is available and secure…experts in the field of ICT have indicated that information and communication technology tools can be used in many areas, as it relates to building resilience to climate change.

Two such tools, he said, include the use of geographic information systems, and early warning systems.

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5 Comments

  1. Annon
    April 4, 2016

    Can they break down the jargon and give a couple of examples how this valuable stuff will help, in ways we the lay people can understand? Anyone please?

  2. Bob Francis
    April 3, 2016

    Well done

  3. Shaka Zulu
    April 1, 2016

    Great. However the equipment is as good as the person using it. Need people with training and experience using any ITC to assist in collecting, analyzing and interpreting the data, maintenance, repair and calibration of equipment, and corrective engineering. It takes years of practice to hone skills. Hope it’s not going be a case where equipment are given and we don’t have skilled folks to use. Landslides continue to be our most costly disaster and last I heard there was a landslide hazard map created for Dominica, but apparently not used in any decisions for construction, settlement and Agri.

  4. derp
    April 1, 2016

    mandate the telecommunication companies to offer the customers true broadband instead of the measly 2mbits, looking at you LIME aka FLOW aka Cable & Wireless

    According to the FCC true broadband is 25mbps or higher

    • Annon
      April 4, 2016

      That’s how they milk us: a bit at a time, then go about making us believe they are doing us a favor when they get to 10 mbps – after they get under water fiber across the seas for free. go figure.

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