Workshop: 'Caribbean Cities Getting Ready'

Urban areas are central to the functioning of national economies and societies. They concentrate people, economic production, and decision-making institutions, but they can also result in a high concentration of vulnerability to climatic and geological hazards such as earthquakes, landslides, hurricanes and floods.

The highly urbanized nations of the Caribbean vividly demonstrate these two contrasting trends. After Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean is the world’s second most urbanized region. A serious assessment of reducing vulnerability to disasters and climate change in the region must therefore carefully analyse the specifically urban dimensions of risk and resilience. In the Caribbean specifically, a large and growing proportion of the population live in urban centers.

Based on the UN-Habitat Global Urban Indicators, the estimated percentage of urban population for the Caribbean countries for 2030 are the following: Barbados: 53.4%, Belize: 63.7%, Cuba:79.3%, Dominica: 81.3%, Dominican Republic: 80%, Haiti: 68%, Jamaica: 62.8%, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines: 58.6% In the Caribbean, urban growth is often accompanied by the lack of urban planning; in consequence there is a rapid expansion of informal settlements; inadequate water and waste disposable management, lack of a standards drainage and building construction. Those are among key drivers in the generation of socio-natural risks. In major and secondary cities in the Caribbean a substantial proportion of the urban poor live in those informal, unregulated settlements with high population densities, inadequate housing, and a lack of basic services; all characteristics that accentuate vulnerability.

The Global Assessment Report 2009 emphasizes “Extensive flood risk is closely linked to the increased run-off caused by new urban development, a chronic underinvestment in city-wide pluvial drainage, the location of informal settlements and social housing projects in low-lying flood prone areas and inadequate water management in the surrounding watersheds. In other words, the urbanization process not only leads to increasing exposure of vulnerable people and assets in hazard prone areas but is also responsible for magnifying the hazards themselves, particularly floods.”

The January 2010 earthquake in Haiti is also a reminder that many Caribbean cities are very exposed and vulnerable to geologic events as well. Another unsafe characteristic of the Caribbean major and secondary cities that is related to its colonial past and the commercial exchange and the current increase in tourism, is that most of the major and secondary cities are located along coastal areas at sea level. These urban areas generate a substantial proportion of national income, yet are highly exposed to hydro-meteorological hazards and climate change. Municipal/City governments have key roles to play in integrating DRR in urban development policies, urban planning, housing, social and emergency services and resources management. However key areas like disaster preparedness planning are still very weak, notably in overcrowded unplanned settlements where authorities often face difficulties to work. This problem is particularly relevant in secondary urban centers, where population growth has greatly exceeded the capacity of local institutions to implement infrastructural and organizational improvements.

Recognizing that local governance and urban risks are global key issues, the 2010-2011 world disaster reduction campaign has been committed to “Making cities resilient”. In this context, Oxfam with the financial support of the European Commission Humanitarian Aid Department (ECHO) has been implementing a 15-months project on learning and sharing about urban risk reduction in the Caribbean. Within this project a regional workshop has been planned in Santo Domingo in collaboration with UN-ISDR and CDEMA, where representatives from municipal authorities, local organizations, academics, UN agencies, regional organizations and national and International NGOs will meet, share and reflect about best practices, participation and governance issues, and sustainability of urban risk reduction.

The workshop thus calls for papers on tools, lessons learned, and best practices in urban risk reduction and governance in the Caribbean region on one (or several) of the themes of the 10-points checklist “Essentials for making cities resilient” and two extra themes:

1. Organization and coordination
2. Budget
3. Risk assessment
4. Critical infrastructure
5. Schools and health facilities
6. Building regulations and land use
7. Information Education Communication
8. Environmental protection
9. Early warning system
10. Participatory reconstruction
Additional themes:

11. National legislation in relation to urban risk reduction
12. Economic tools for vulnerability reduction in urban environment