With climate change at the centre of discussions among CARICOM heads of government, Haiti’s President, Jovenel Moise, wants the region to confront the challenges together, from a position of strength.
He also wants a new mechanism for disaster risk funding that would assist affected member states to quickly recover and reconstruct.
The thinking behind the call for a new mechanism was to ensure that funds for reconstruction are channeled through “affordable and effective procedures, rather than be paralyzed by the expectation of unlikely assistance which, in most cases, is too little, comes too late and, sometimes, never happens,” he said.
President of Moise, who is the current chairman of CARICOM, addressed the opening ceremony of the 29th intersessional meeting of the heads of government of CARICOM, in Port-au-Prince on Monday and placed much emphasis on climate change, natural disasters and funding for recovery.
He said that he was organizing an international conference aimed at strengthening the mechanisms of resilience to the effects of climate change and the management of natural disasters in the Caribbean.
“This will be an opportunity for the states, partners and international development actors to exchange ideas and make proposals on the best features of prevention and responses to natural disasters. Without your full participation, this conference will not be successful. You are, already, invited,” he said.
In his address, Moise said that he was assuming the chairmanship of the Community at a time when it was grappling with the effects of extreme weather caused by global warming. The “sometimes permanent damage and losses” that were consequences of natural disasters slowed the socio-economic development of countries in the region, and prevented them from achieving sustainable development goals, he said.
