Improving climate change resilience of Caribbean Communities project

The Improving climate change resilience of Caribbean communities project was implemented by the Red Cross Societies of Antigua & Barbuda, Jamaica and Suriname. The International Federation of Red Cross Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) provided technical and management support and oversight to this initiative and financial support came from the UK Department for International Development (DFID).

With Caribbean development often set back by the impact of hurricane, flood, droughts and other weather-­-related phenomena, a situation which is only expected to worsen as climate change increasingly impacts upon the region, building resilience to climate change and disasters at both institutional and community levels is a core component of DFID Caribbean’s 2011-­-2015 Operational Plan. In 2011 DFID identified the opportunity to support the Red Cross in the Caribbean to further its work in community-­-based risk reduction and resilience building at the local level. A one year project was scoped out that built on the core Red Cross disaster risk reduction approach by integrating climate change adaptation, health interventions and shelter strengthening through retrofitting the homes of vulnerable community members. The project also aimed to strengthen the Red Cross’ capacities to demonstrate project impact by introducing cost benefit analysis methodology to inform decision-­-making regarding investment in micro-­-mitigation projects.

The project was to be implemented in three representative countries throughout the Caribbean in order to pilot these and other new tools prior to rolling them out throughout the region. The National Societies (NSs) of Antigua & Barbuda, Jamaica and Suriname were chosen to implement the project as they were seen to be largely representative of the diversity of countries in the region, were exposed to similar climatic conditions and were judged to have strong relevant technical capacities.