Disaster risk management in Latin America and the Caribbean region: GFDRR country notes

This publication aims to provide a brief overview of the disaster risk management (DRM) strides made in several Latin America and the Caribbean Region countries to date. It includes a set of country notes organised by country priority levels determined by the GFDRR. It first focus on the two GFDRR Priority Countries (Haiti and Panama), then the four Donor Earmarked Non-Core Countries (Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Guatemala), and finally, a number of countries which do not at present appear in the GFDRR priority country lists but where GFDRR has been working with the governments and either has had or is discussing possible projects for the near future.

The publication considers a wide variety of natural hazards Latin America and the Caribbean Region is exposed to, including earthquakes, volcanoes, storms, extreme temperatures, droughts, floods, landslides, etc., many of which are regularly aggravated by the recurrent El Niño. It asserts that the global trend toward increasing climate variability is likely to exacerbate many of these hazards and that this concentration of hazards points to the needs to include DRM as a key element in development programs in the region.