A Caribbean Training Centre, warehouse and the Regional Coordination Centre are all now housed with the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency’s (CDEMA), new eight million dollar headquarters, which was just launched at Resilience Way, Lower Estate, St. Michael.

Executive Director of CDEMA, Ronald Jackson, said the Centre, would focus mainly on the delivery of standardised training, even to the Master’s degree level.

Studies would include, but not be limited to – Contingency Planning; Emergency Operations; Disaster Risk Management as well as Programme Development and Management for Comprehensive Disaster Management (CDM).

In this way, Barbados and other members of CDEMA can benefit from streamlined education in areas related to disaster management, he added the Regional Training Centre would also contribute to fulfilling objectives listed in the Comprehensive Disaster Management Strategy 2014 to 2024, which spoke directly to strengthening institutional arrangements for CDM in the region.

The Executive Director noted since CDEMA’s beginning in 1991, the NGO pursued a policy of collaboration with local, regional and global organisations towards the formation of a safer, more proactive Caribbean.

The Regional Training Centre was formed to address several needs including promoting comprehensive disaster management throughout its 18 member countries; identifying gaps in CDM capabilities and training needs within the CDEMA system; developing and maintaining the capabilities for CDM by providing a programme of standardised training; maintaining a record of existing capabilities, materials and resources in addition to facilitating and promoting national, regional and international alliances for creating and delivering unified training for the NGO.