BUILDING RESILIENCE TO CLIMATE CHANGE, COMMUNITY FORUM – ANTIGUA & BARBUDA

 

Fifteen (15) persons, including women from several communities, in Antigua and Barbuda, successfully participated in community resilience forum. This is an integral part of a project to strengthen coastal and marine climate resilience through upland and coastal ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) and community engagement, funded by the Caribbean Biodiversity Fund (CBF) and executed by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA).

This activity the final activity under the project was a workshop for beneficiaries as well as agricultural stakeholders hosted by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) and facilitated by Miss Julie-Ann Laudat of JAL Training and Consultancy Services was held on Wednesday,6th September.

“Building Resilience to the negative effects of Climate Change” was the theme of this exercise with the main focus on solutions to mitigate the negative impact of Natural Disasters caused by Climate Change with emphasis placed specifically the resumption of livelihoods in minimal time possible.

In addition to Antigua and Barbuda, the IICA/CBF-EbA Project is being implemented in communities in Dominica, Saint Lucia and Trinidad & Tobago. The purpose of the training was to stimulate the establishment of sustainable green business development linked to green engineering solutions for land conservation within the community.

It must be appreciated that often times after natural disasters the focus is usually on safety and wellbeing. However, the continuance of survival within the communities is also heavily dependent on the rapid return to normalcy. Therefore, Community Resilience should be sustained and the ability of any community to use available resources to respond to, withstand, and recover from adverse situations is crucial. Additionally, we must all be cognizant that “community” is not restricted to where we live but also refers to our groups, associations and organizations we are a part of, whether it is social, cultural, environmental, spiritual or economical.

During this session the participants had to address several concerns and had to share the ideas and solutions towards a plan of action. These were related to:

. The impact of Climate Change on Antigua and Barbuda

2. Communities Resilience

3. Communities and Government involvement.

Over the years our island has benefitted from a number of projects funded locally and externally before and post disasters. Despite having developed policy to increase resilience in areas such as the agriculture and fisheries sectors there is still need for improvement. Moreover, communities need to be empowered to take ownership of existing assets when faced with a disaster and in the immediate aftermath. This also requires a change in mindset and behaviour. To achieve this, it is important to determine what is the current mindset and behaviour patterns.

While one aspect of the EbA Vetiver project focused on empowering communities and strengthening livelihoods IICA felt that the necessity to reiterate the importance of Community Climate Resilience was prudent.