Organization: University of the West Indies (UWI)

Session Leads: Evangeline Inniss, Department of Disaster Management (BVI) & Jeremy Collymore, UWI

Time: 9:00-12:30

Summary: The Caribbean is one of the most disaster-prone areas in the world being subjected to earthquakes, hurricanes, droughts, floods and infectious diseases among others.  Impact from these hazards often result in significant disruption to our society and economy resulting in loss of revenue and services. Higher Education/Tertiary Institutions are not spared the damage and disruption as was evident during the 2017 hurricane season where several Caribbean HEIs experienced at varying levels of destruction.

Planning and preparing to deal with incidents, of any size, that have the potential to disrupt organisational and operational functionality are the key tenets of the contingency and continuity of operations process.  The 2017 disaster events clearly demonstrated and brought forcibly to the fore the need for Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) to have plans in place that will help (i) minimize the impact from natural and man-made hazards and (ii) reduce down-time before returning to normal operations. 

The Workshop will build on the UWI’s HEI Contingency Planning Initiative undertaken in collaboration with CDEMA. This Professional Development Training event will be led by iDEAs Transformation and is offered as a joint UWI and CDEMA Regional Training Centre training event.