Building Regulation for Resilience: Innovation for Risk Reduction and Finance

Organization: UNDRR, EIRD

Session Leads: Carlos Uribe, UNDRR & Maria Kontro, EIRD

Time: 14:00-15:15

This workshop will convene Caribbean regional organizations concerned with disaster risk reduction and disaster risk finance to initiate the development and planning process for establishing a Caribbean Resilience Facility to provide technical assistance, training and shared facilities to support risk reduction and risk financing initiatives for the countries of the region. Risk reduction support may include building and land use regulatory standards and implementation. Risk financing support may include innovative insurance products and building finance models as well as expansion of insurance markets and providing incentives or mitigation investment. This discussion will lay the foundation for a regional facility that has the capacity to develop, maintain and support such an entity within CARICOM to strengthen effective and efficient collaboration between member states on disaster risk reduction and finance. This workshop and initiative is supported under the EU funded and World Bank executed Caribbean Regional Resilience Facility.

This workshop is intended to build consensus on a proposed path forward and develop a roadmap for implementation with regional stakeholders including: the CARICOM Regional Organization for Standards and Quality (CROSQ), the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), the Secretariat of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), The Institute of Sustainable Development, University of the West Indies, and the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF). This collaboration builds on conversations and momentum from CROSQ and CDEMA as well as existing building regulatory capacity engagements of World Bank in Jamaica and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

Furthermore, this initiative will seek to engage the risk assessment, reduction and transfer capabilities of regional primary insurers and the global insurance industry. Partners would include CCRIF SPC, re:focus and others. The Caribbean Resilience Facility will explore innovative mechanisms to fund mitigation investment and to capture the future benefits of investments in mitigation (e.g. effective implementation of up-to-date building codes and standards).  

Workshop discussion will be directed to the development of recommendations for the structure and functions of a Caribbean Resilience Facility.