The Civil Defence Commission (CDC) recently hosted a capacity building workshop for its current 20-member Volunteer Corps, which will be formally launched later this year.
In a press statement, the CDC said the participants “gained valuable” insights into the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), the roles and responsibilities of the CDC, the development of an Integrated Risk Management Plan for Guyana and were briefed on the IDB/UNDP Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Management initiatives implemented by the CDC.
The CDC said the workshop was critical to educating the participants on local and regional DRR, DRM and CDM environment. Its Volunteer Corps will be formally launched later this year on completion of several aspects of its planning and development phase. The corps of volunteers is expected to augment and enhance the CDC’s capacity and compatibilities to execute its programmes and projects.
Based on Operations and Training Officer Major Kester Craig’s presentation at the workshop, some of the major hazards identified in Guyana are floods, fires, droughts, aircraft crashes, river mishaps, vehicular accidents and chemical spills. Health hazards were identified as dengue fever, malaria, leptospirosis and avian flu.
Craig noted that Guyana’s porous borders make it difficult to monitor health related cases. He also identified the prevalence of old, wooden buildings that are located close to each other; the increased number of vehicles on the roadways; the small boats which use limited safety precautions while traversing rivers; the lack of radars to monitor and direct aircraft in Guyana’s airspace; insufficient early warning systems for the country and chemical spills which occur in mining areas as other vulnerabilities. Craig noted that these were more likely to result in higher negative impacts because 75% of the population lives along the coastland, which is one to three meters below sea level and also because 70% of Guyana’s GDP is earned in this region of the country.
According to Craig a number of steps are being taken to reduce the risks in Guyana. He also spoke about a number of disaster management projects that the CDC is executing, including flood analysis of the Mahaica River based on the outputs of the land and flood surveys and other data; preparation of flood hazard maps, studies and exercise of community disaster prevention activities in a pilot community; installation of the hydrological equipment for early flood warning system and the construction of hydrological equipment for early flood warning system and the construction of a hydrological database to be stored at the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH).
