The Government of Dominica says it is committed to implement the Disaster Resilience Strategy (DRS) in order to guide its efforts in becoming the first climate resilient country in the world.
According to a government statement issued recently, the cost of funding the interventions outlined in the DRS is approximately US$2.8 billion dollars or approximately EC$8.0 billion dollars.
“The Cabinet of Dominica approved of the Disaster Resilience Strategy as an Annex to the Climate Resilience and Recovery Plan (CRRP), which was published in May 2020,” the release said. “The Government is committed to implementing this Strategy…we believe that this strategy along with the NRDS and CRRP will guide our efforts at becoming the first climate resilient country in the world.”
The statement highlighted Dominica’s vulnerability to natural disasters of varying forms and intensity and for the past twenty (20) years, citing the devastating effects of disasters from low pressure systems and troughs to a category 5 hurricane—the worst of those being Tropical Storm Erica in 2015, and Hurricane Maria in 2017.
In aggregate, the country lost over 300% of its GDP and following Hurricane Maria, Prime Minister and Minister of Finance announced his intention to rebuild Dominica better into the first climate resilient nation in the world.
In February of 2019, the Deputy Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) visited Dominica to discuss possible areas of support.
“During the visit, it was agreed that the IMF in collaboration with other development partners would assist government to prepare a Disaster Resilience Strategy (DRS),” the statement stated. “The purpose of the Disaster Resilience Strategy is to provide a comprehensive plan that includes the policies, cost, and financing for natural disaster resilience.”
A DRS, developed for Dominica in February 2020 with the assistance of the IMF, is premised on the three pillars of Structural Resilience, Financial Resilience and Post-Disaster Resilience.
Based on the progress that was made in structural resilience, the DRS took proposed that the country continue with twelve core investments to include road network, air transport and connectivity, seaport improvements, flood prevention, energy investment, health, housing, zoning and land use, water and sanitation, insurance, government self insurance fund, strengthening of private insurance to include low income households.
For Post Disaster and Social Resilience the four main propositions are food security, effective disaster response and recovery, national action plan for risk reduction and social data capture and improvement of social safety nets.
The full statement is posted below.
No point to discuss this nonsensical propaganda ploy. Simply ask where the 8 billion are supposed to come from. More loans or more passport sales? We have to stop believing blindly in this PM. Instead we need to insist on accountability, without IF or BUT! We have tolerated lies, spin, false accounting, mediocrity and utter incompetence for to long. The country is flat on its belly and these clowns talk to us about this nonsense…
Low income home owners this and that….. my God! Just pay people enough money so they can do things for themselves! So public servants cannot build a climate resilient house on their salary??? Come on now! So what’s the point of working hard if you cannot even build your own home??? The way I see it, they just want young people to come and beg beg beg!
Low income this and that… just pay people a good salary to include the public servants so they can do things for themselves. It’s always a begging here and there! Public servants have to beg the government for money to build a climate resilient house???? A whole bunch of rubbish!!!! I’m just fed up with this place now..
Resilience is not necessarily related to the listed core investments. It is largely dependent on the way we live.
If we strive towards self-sufficiency there is no storm, hurricane or pandemic that can destroy us in the long term. Like nature, we would have the wherewithal to bounce back.
But if we hanker after the perceived luxuries of others we will need the help of others to sustain their imported lifestyle.
I see IMF made statement, they are the World bank, and the World bank is just that, a bank. Have they sold us or strong-armed us into this new $8billion LOAN? That’s what they do the world over. Will Dominican builders be uninvolved or involved?
Beautiful strategic long due structural plan. However, the people and their active industrial lives will someday be called upon to support this structure, even though laid down with support intent, as we contend with changing world challenges to secure a continuous flow of vital monetary energy into households. The people, through financing institutions could do with some of these Billions, to secure a standard of living where they may enjoy this pleasurable outlook. Some bad examples have tightened the leeway we receive from financial institutions, where we may do our best to harmonize and safely benefit from this new platform. Good work Government.
lmaooooooooooooooooooooooo. more mediocrity. Just doing fing, and big pronouncement. rigfht now they dont even care if things done properly. the laundromat have to wash
Resilient, that word just keep being thrown around. Must be a word from the Barbadian advisors, same ones that advised on Ross University. Anyways there is no way to protect oneself and property from mother natures raff. The flooding of recent moved whole mountain sides and buildings, how u protect against the earth moving . Stop feeding people rubbish. Maybe if you focus on improving the standard of living and elevating people u would not have to worry bout building houses for people.
This is another one of Roosevelt Skerrit’s diversionary ploy to distract from his excesses, wrongdoings and falsehoods. The airport, electoral reforms, exit from the $64 000 palace are all bogus promises to assuage the people’s anxieties and frustrations.
The latest scandalous, shameful and nauseating trickery is the free ham and turkey distributed to a most impoverished population in the night. What a NOCTURNAL GOVERNMENT! This is the exact stratagem of the former Plantation Owners. They used salty, fatty food high in cholesterol, to appease the hungry slaves once per year.
This is Plantation Politics at its best. It’s a colossal insult to the intelligence of the people.
Won’t it be much better to raise the minimum wage; give public servants a raise in salary; create the economic conditions for employment; reduce the unproductive, pot belly CABINET of sheep-like followers?
To the hungry man even bitter is sweet. Insults mean nothing to the dispossessed.
No mention of CREAD!
I think this is a fraudulent scheme…I think that at least half of the amount has already been made from CBI.
2 years ago…2018 the CREAD bill was passed in parliament…..I think it was earlier this year that the CEO called in quits.
That was disastrous…to my mind.
This may not be related… but looking at the events… the project coordinator for MMCE passed away over the weekend. Prior to that the whole talk was about an international airport to be financed by CBI arrangements with MMCE.
All of a sudden de broke government talking about $8 billion EC climate resilience strategy…… where are we going to get the money from Skerrit
Exactly, NO MENTION OF CREAD. Geothermal is a joke. B. will be our new international airport. but it wouldnt meet int’l standards. ironic how that 2.8 billion sounds familiar. I guess they find it somewhere. but lets see how it is used. I self want to see reciepts