CDEMA Participating States will soon have at their fingertips a Model National Multi-Hazard Early Warning System (MHEWS) Policy and Adaptation Guide that will provide guidance on the treatment of early warning systems across multiple hazards, the four pillars required for fully integrated systems and the integration of gender. This tool is expected to be available by January, 2020 with the support of consultant Mr. Jeremy Collymore who will undertake extensive consultations with stakeholders at the regional, national, local and sectoral levels as well as with civil society and private sectors organisations to inform policy.
The process will also involve validation of draft policy and guidance document and adaptation in Saint Lucia which is a beneficiary country of the Project “Strengthen integrated and cohesive preparedness capacity at a regional, national and community level in the Caribbean.” The policy gap was identified through previous assessments and most recently with the application of the MHEWS Checklist which is a practical tool consisting of major components and actions that national governments, community organizations and partners within and across all sectors can refer to when developing or evaluating early warning systems (visit our EWS Toolkit on the CDEMA Website at https://www.cdema.org/ews/).
The “Strengthen integrated and cohesive preparedness capacity at a regional, national and community level in the Caribbean” project supports concrete actions for an effective early warning system, as well as aims to improve information management and operational capacity for an improved Caribbean Regional Response Mechanism. Working with Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Cuba at a national and community level, and with regional early warning and response actors at the Caribbean level, United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and the International Federation of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent (IFRC) are partnering with the General Directorate of Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid of the European Union (ECHO) to reduce the risk of disasters in the region.