GRAND CAYMAN, Cayman Islands, CMC—The Caribbean Disaster Danger Insurance coverage Facility (CCRIF SPC) has launched a brand new initiative to make sure that the area “doesn’t overlook the teachings discovered” from Hurricane Ivan’s passage 20 years in the past.
CCRIF is spearheading the Ivan+20 Initiative in collaboration with Caribbean governments and regional organizations, together with the Barbados-based Caribbean Catastrophe Emergency Administration Company (CDEMA) and The College of the West Indies (UWI).
It was launched underneath the theme “Ivan+20: Remembering the Previous, Reflecting on the Current, and Visioning for the Future: 20 Years Since Ivan… Resilience, Adaptation, Sustainability in Caribbean SIDS”.
Hurricane Ivan was a big, long-lived Cape Verde hurricane that precipitated widespread injury within the Caribbean and United States. It impacted Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, Western Cuba, and the Yucatan Peninsula as a devastating Class 5 hurricane on the Saffir/Simpson scale.
The organizers stated the initiative’s aim is “to collectively restate our commitments to making sure that we always remember and undertake the teachings discovered from Hurricane Ivan, push ahead, take cost, and create the resilient and sustainable future we wish.
“Ivan+20 will embody a year-long sequence of occasions that have interaction Caribbean governments, regional organizations, educational establishments, civil society organizations, the personal sector, youth and youngsters, and most of the people.”
It’ll additionally have a good time the Caribbean area’s progress regarding complete catastrophe danger administration (CDRM) and create an surroundings that can allow the collective imaginative and prescient of a sustainable and resilient future that shall be made within the subsequent 20 years.
“We’re not right here to have a good time Ivan, however to have a good time the collective motion and the collective will that got here out of Ivan,” stated CCRIF chief govt officer Isaac Anthony.
“It’s about remembering the previous and imagining the longer term as one Caribbean—a set of small island and coastal growing states anticipating modifications and constructing resilience, securing a sustainable future for its peoples and making a best-practice instance for different islands and coastal states globally,” he added.
CCRIF stated the Ivan+20 idea is, subsequently, far more than a remembrance of Hurricane Ivan, which, in 2004, devastated 9 international locations within the Caribbean, inflicting lack of life, destruction of homes and communities, homelessness, injury to infrastructure – together with electrical utilities transmission and distribution programs, and leading to regional losses of over six billion US {dollars}.
CCRIF stated it regards itself as a by-product of Hurricane Ivan, noting that as a corporation, the introduction of parametric insurance coverage within the Caribbean was born out of Ivan. Following Hurricane Ivan, CARICOM leaders approached the World Financial institution for help in designing and implementing an economical disaster danger financing mechanism for its member governments, enabling them to entry fast liquidity following a pure catastrophe.
Since CCRIF’s inception in 2007, it has made 64 payouts, totaling US$268 million, to 17 of its 26 members, all inside 14 days of an occasion.
CCRIF chairman and Governor of the St. Kitts-based Japanese Caribbean Central Financial institution (ECCB) Timothy Antoine stated that CCRIF was an answer not just for the Caribbean but additionally for Central America. We’ve additionally prolonged our impression to Central America, and since 2015, we have now continued to develop our membership in Central America.
“Greater than that, we have now impressed different areas on the planet – Africa, the Pacific, and extra lately Southeast Asia- to mannequin themselves on CCRIF SPC. I make these factors to point out the legacy of Hurricane Ivan within the Caribbean and past the Caribbean,” he added.
Cayman Islands Premier and Minister of Finance Juliana O’Connor-Connolly and Michael Nixon, the Senior Assistant Monetary Secretary, have been current on the launch. Nixon recalled that Ivan was an “unforgettable and devastating” expertise for the Cayman Islands.
“We’ve been companions with CCRIF since its creation. CCRIF has carried out an exemplary job of bringing merchandise that match international locations’ wants, which helps assuaging among the monetary danger [burdens] related to disasters. We proceed to work with CCRIF. We’re honored right this moment to face subsequent to them to launch the Ivan+20 initiative that can happen for the rest of this yr.”
CDEMA’s Deputy Government Director, Kester Craig, stated, “Hurricane Ivan was a watershed occasion within the historical past of catastrophe administration within the area, precipitating not solely the institution of CCRIF but additionally a variety of enhancements in CDEMA’s regional response mechanism.”
Professional Vice-Chancellor International Affairs at The UWI, Sandrea Maynard, reiterated the significance of the year-long set of actions, saying, “The importance of commemorating the twentieth anniversary of Hurricane Ivan and reflecting on the journey in the direction of resilience is a vital one for the area and the actions, such because the resilience dialogues, sharing finest practices and interesting the youth in shaping a resilient future, are poised to be very impactful and interesting”.
Ivan+20’s yr of actions will culminate with the mixing of Ivan+, which shall be held in St. Kitts-Nevis from December 2-6 this yr.
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