CDEMA hosts National Level Exercises across its 20 Participating States

Bridgetown, Barbados March 22, 2022 - The Preparedness and Response Division (PRD) of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) recently hosted a series of virtual Tabletop National Level Exercises (NLEs) focused on enhancing capacity at the national level to manage disaster events. Emergency Personnel from the 20 CDEMA Participating States (PSs) benefitted from scenarios and discussions on shelter management, logistics, communications, health and GIS capacity.  

Programme Officer, Preparedness and Response at CDEMA, Rasheed Pinder, explained the purpose of the National Exercises saying, “The CDEMA CU national level exercises provides an excellent opportunity to bring together national and regional stakeholders to review/update and discuss national emergency management plans, Standard Operating Procedures and guidelines. The exercises conducted thus far have enhanced the capacity at the national level for the management of natural hazards; by extension, this has led to the continual strengthening of the regional response mechanism. Therefore, it is the intention to conduct such exercises for all 20 CDEMA PSs.”  

The above-normal Atlantic hurricane seasons of 2019 and 2020 provided context for strengthening the Regional Response Mechanism ahead of the 2022 season. Participants were also oriented on updating emergency management plans, national hurricane coordination in the COVID-19 context  and the role of GIS in disaster response.