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WORLD NEWS Thursday 3 November 2022
Aruba host of conference regarding

financial preparedness and resilience

In case of calamity for Caribbean Countries

ORANJESTAD – Today, No- De Kort pointed out that remain operational during
vember 3rd is the last day this is already common in a crisis or disaster.
of the Comprehensive Di- common areas in the Ca- Organizations that plan
saster Risk Management ribbean, as is the case in prepare and ensure to of food security. Ffor Aruba many international repre-
and Financial Resilience Sint Maarten, where in 2017 be trained in case of un- as well, after Covid an eval- sentatives. For us this is al-
Workshop for Overseas the island suffered the pas- expected interruptions uation can be done to see ready a big win, because
Countries and Territories sage of a hurricane. “Natu- showed to be those who the social and economic these people see our is-
in the Caribbean, taking rally they are more focused recover their normal opera- impact of the shock”, he land and our sites, which
place at the Renaissance on thinking how in the fu- tions faster than others. said. also have the capacity to
Convention Center, where ture, knowing that these From the first day of the di- The RESEMBID project is organize such a confer-
Aruba was chosen as host things happen regularly, to saster, the financial ques- coming to an end, but it ence here in Aruba with
this year. prevent this from being a tions come on the table was active for four years the presence of high level
financial burden”, he said. because it is necessary to according to De Kort, and international representa-
The objective of this work- evaluate how to finance is directed to helping coun- tives”, Wever commented.
shop was for Overseas Present at the workshop aid in the short term, start- tries think how they can be In his opinion, the contents
Countries and Territories were representatives from ing with humanitarian aid. better prepare for shocks in of the conference, which
(OCTs) in the Caribbean all OCTs islands, as well as At the same time as a gov- general. is based on calamity, it is
as well as regional organi- some organizations like the ernment in general they The focus was primarily on important to know how to
zations and partners in de- United Nations World Food need to think in the long hurricanes, since this is the manage these. “As small
velopment can discuss and Programme, Caribbean term how to rebuild the best known kind of impact islands, if something hap-
share their experiences in Institute for Meteorology country, how this recovery in the Caribbean. The pan- pen to us like a hurricane or
the integral management and Hidrology, ECLAL Sub- will take place and how to demic was something very earthquake, the question is
of disaster risk and finan- regional Headquartes for finance different ministries different even though it how will we deal with it? This
cial protection during three the Caribbean, Federico so they can have the nec- halted tourism and income is the reason that we need
days. Baechi of the World Bank, essary resources going for- for Aruba, leaving behind a to allocate all the funds be-
Mary Boyer and David Sisle ward. very strong impact. cause all these challenges,
The workshop takes place of the Caribbean Catastro- a small country has them”,
organized by a group of phe Risk Insurance Facility This initiative was financed Aruban minister of Econom- he said.
the World Bank together (CCRIF SPC), Isaac Antho- by the European fund RE- ic Affairs, Communication
with Caribbean Catastro- ny and Elizabeth Emanuel SEMBID. This fund is active and Sustainable Develop- Prime Minister of Aruba,
phe Risk Insurance Facility from a delegation of the for a few years already on ment, Mr. Geoffrey Wever Evelyn Wever-Croes said
with support of the Euro- European Union in Guyana, the islands, which means was also present during this that this conference is the
pean Union and Global Fa- and Layla El Khadraoui, that aside from the World workshop. He said he is also result of various years of
cility for Disaster Reduction representative of the re- Bank, it has already provid- a Territorial Authorizing Of- work. In 2018 the work be-
and Recovery, under Resil- gional program of RESEM- ed aid to the OCTs during, ficer (TAO) for projects of gan, in 2019 they were in
ience, Renewable Energy BID. for example, the Covid-19 the European Union, which Sint Maarten to sign the
and Marine Biodiversity Pro- Bureau Rampenbestrijding pandemic, which different means that all EU projects first agreements between
gramme (RESEMBID). Aruba was also present dur- evaluations of technical as- fall under his authority since the World Bank and vari-
ing this workshop, as they sistance to help them over- he is involved reporting for ous countries that are con-
Redenll de Kort, consultant are the ones in charge of come unexpected events, this to the EU. sidered capacitated. They
economist of the World preparing the island for any like the pandemic, which This is also the reason why have been working on re-
Bank explained that the fo- calamity. This encompasses was a shock. De Kort said minister Wever was invited, silience to climate change
cus of this event is how the different aspects, not only that the pandemic might since it is a conference or- for a long time. “Aruba is
country is financially pre- people, technology, data, not have been a hurricane; ganized by the EU through a blessed island where we
pared in advance, so that etc. It involves keeping however, it had significant the RESEMBID program. don’t have bad weather
when confronting a calam- people safe, connecting impact. “World Bank was “It is important for us to or hurricanes compared to
ity the country can have information and cardinal active on the ABC islands have a conference of the other islands in the Carib-
some financial funds avail- aspects of management and currently in Curaçao is EU together with World bean. But even so we are
able to deal with this. of business so that they can carrying out an evaluation Bank here in Aruba, of so also in the risk area, and this
is why we are participat-
ing”, she said.

What was presented is like
risk insurance that coun-
tries can purchase with the
World Bank to cover effects
of a hurricane or other simi-
lar events. “Same as you in-
sure your home against fire,
in this case it is for the coun-
try. They do this because
they see that all these is-
lands, if something hap-
pens to us be it a hurricane,
it will take a long time for us
to have the funds to begin
recover and rebuild”, Wev-
er-Croes said. q