Early Warming Systems and Preparedness

DIPECHO Caribbean Projects

Under the leadership of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) in alliance with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the International Federation of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent (IFRC), and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), (the latter involved in phase II), two projects funded by the General Directorate of Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid of the European Union (ECHO), were implemented in the period June 2017 to April 2020. The scope of the projects included several interventions at the regional, national and community levels in the Caribbean countries.

DIPECHO I: "Strengthening integrated early warning systems for a more effective reduction of disaster risk in the Caribbean through knowledge and tool transfer"

DIPECHO II:  “Strengthen integrated and cohesive preparedness capacity at a regional, national and community level in the Caribbean” 

These projects, which took place in  Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Cuba (in a South-South Cooperation modality), sought to strengthen disaster preparedness and risk reduction through Integrated Early Warning Systems (EWS). They also aimed at improving information management and operational capacity to enhance the disaster preparedness mechanism for the Caribbean Regional Response, based on mutual learning and collaboration between countries and regional institutions working in disaster risk reduction across the region. 

The main products of the projects are summarized hereunder classified according to their level of intervention: