says CARICOM Secretary-General
(CARICOM Secretariat,Greater Georgetown, Guyana) In an era when developed and developing nations did not prioritise asymmetry in new trading arrangements, economic competitiveness and disaster preparedness were essential for the Caribbean Region, said His Excellency Edwin Carrington. The Secretary-General of the Caribbean Forum of African Caribbean and Pacific States (CARIFORUM) was at the time speaking at the commissioning of a Doppler radar weather system on March 31, in Brasso Venado, Trinidad and Tobago.
The weather monitoring mechanism was actualised through a Financing Agreement with the European Commission (EC) and CARIFORUM, signed on 8 November 2003 for a financial commitment from the European Development Fund (EDF) of 13.2 million Euros, to facilitate the construction of four weather radar stations in the CARIFORUM Region. Along with this new radar weather system in Trinidad and Tobago, similar installations were done in Barbados, Belize, and Guyana.
The Secretary-General noted that natural disasters exacerbated the “serious challenges” CARIFORUM Member States faced in their bid to achieve competitiveness in an era when preferences had virtually become an historical footnote, and when the new trading arrangements between developed and developing nations generally pay little or no heed to asymmetry.
“It is therefore imperative that economic competitiveness becomes the underlying principle of all industrial and business activity in our Region. In striving towards that competitiveness, due attention must be paid to disaster preparedness and mitigation mechanisms,” he said.
Mr. Carrington stated that the Regional Weather Radar Warning System was vital to the development aspirations of CARIFORUM, as it provided early warning and monitoring of hurricanes, tropical storms, and other severe weather systems that endangered life, destroyed property and infrastructure and retarded industry. All those factors, he said, adversely affected sustainable development.
A stark example was the January 12 Haitian catastrophe, which recorded one of the worst natural disasters in history, with the loss of life estimated close to quarter million people: the combined population of Barbados, Montserrat and St. Kitts and Nevis, he said. While the earthquake in Haiti could not have been forecast by a Doppler radar weather system, Mr. Carrington said it served as a “powerful reminder that disaster is a constant companion to all and sundry in our part of the world.”
“This situation,” he added, “becomes more pronounced as we increasingly encounter the effects of the phenomenon of climate change.”
“As has been the case of the January 12 earthquake in Haiti, or the 2004 Hurricane Ivan in Grenada, one natural disaster can not only destroy thousands of lives and billions of dollars worth of property, but can actually wreck entire economies as well,” the CARICOM Secretary-General said.
It was against that backdrop, he said, that the CARICOM Conference of Heads of Government which took place in July 2004, had identified inadequate risk mitigation as one of the nine “Key Binding Constraints” to the development of several sectors of the regional economy, particularly, agriculture.
Mr. Carrington said that in recognition of this fact, the European Commission and CARIFORUM, as partners in development, decided to embark upon this vital regional project with the Trinidad and Tobago Doppler Weather Radar as one of the components.
Apart from the four countries which have already benefited from the project, there were five additional weather radars in the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guiana. Together, these nine Doppler Weather Radars comprise the Caribbean Basin Weather Radar Network.
The radars were built in Germany and will provide continuous surveillance of all weather at various ranges and up to a distance of 400 kilometers in all directions.
They will enable weather forecasters to study and monitor weather systems in the Region as they develop, thereby allowing Meteorologists to transmit more accurate and timely information of the type, intensity and location of severe weather, including approaching tropical storms and hurricanes.
The radars will also be critical in informing the Caribbean public of approaching weather conditions as the technology will allow the various national meteorological services to make the weather data available to the public via the Internet.
Mr. Carrington noted that the estimated contribution of the Regional Weather Radar Warning System Project to the sustainable development of CARIFORUM was “very significant,” especially in respect of cost saving through damage prevention and reduction accruing from the new weather radar system, both estimated at 7 million Euros or about US$10 million United States Dollars, per year, he said.
The Secretary-General noted that Financing Agreement with the EC was testimony to the European Union’s commitment to the Region’s development, for which he expressed “deep gratitude.” He acknowledged similar interventions by other international and regional organisations including the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the United States Department of Commerce and the National Hurricane Centre in Miami, Florida.