In an interview with UN News, Stephen O’Malley, UN Resident Coordinator & Resident Representative of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) for Barbados and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States, says he is happy with the results of the donor conference held at the UN earlier this week, to help hurricane-devastated Caribbean islands.
category-5 Hurricanes Irma and Maria, hit the Caribbean in September 2017, and caused several deaths and widespread devastation. Barbuda and Dominica were among the most severely affected, along with a number of other Caribbean islands, and the overall costs in damage are expected to surpass $5-billion. O’Malley acknowledged that Dominica has a very long road to recovery, and noted that while the roads in the capital, Roseau, are more or less clear and the water supply is back, only 3% of the country currently has electricity. He also noted that Dominica’s Agriculture has been badly affected, and said “It’s still a hard time”. Nearly 400 high-level representatives from governments, multilateral and civil society organizations and the private sector gathered in New York, along with the Secretaries-General of the UN and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to help the affected countries “build back better.” O’Malley said, “They want to be a climate-resilient region,” and that involves practical steps from the way a country’s road network and electricity grid are designed, to ensuring that schools and hospitals are built to withstand the impact of climate change. He added, “It’s your infrastructure. It’s also better planning and preparedness by the governments, so that they can respond more quickly. They have the capacity to do that, and there’s a variety of different things there to make everybody more climate resilient.” Donors pledged over US$2-billion at the conference.
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