The “debt and death” ailment is well-known to vulnerable Caribbean island states. Intensifying cycles of acute damage and loss from recurrent climate disaster-driven events are increasingly observed. This scenario is often accompanied by a net cumulative increase in sovereign debt, in part to finance resilient recovery and reconstruction, periodically punctuated by … [Read more...] about Why Caribbean countries should not consider pausing climate-resilient public investments during the pandemic
Yuri Chakalall
Mr. Yuri Chakalall is a Development Professional with more than twenty-two years of combined experience in coastal resources management, environmental planning, disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation and humanitarian assistance. Yuri’s experience has been gained from field level implementation to senior level management of natural resource management initiatives spanning the public, private, civil society and international development sectors throughout the Caribbean. Over his career to date he has served as: Disaster Risk Management Specialist with the Caribbean Development Bank, an international disaster reduction advisor for UNDP in Nepal, a Snr. Development officer with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA); and also, as Regional Director of Smith Warner International and Coastal Planner for Barbados. Currently he serves as Sector Specialist in Natural Disasters and Risk Management at the IDB. Mr. Chakalall is a graduate of the Faculty of Natural Sciences and a post graduate of the Marine Resource & Environmental Management Programme, Centre for Resource Management & Environmental Studies (CERMES), University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados. He completed his studies in humanitarian assistance, at the Center for International Cooperation in Health, at Fordham University, in New York.
How to Strengthen Hurricane-Response and Recovery in a Global Pandemic
A 2019 Regional Hurricane Risk Analysis financed by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and undertaken by the firm Ingeniería Técnica y Científica S.A.S de Colombia found that Caribbean island states are indicatively at risk of suffering probable maximum losses of US$56 billion dollars for a probable 100-year cyclone. Typically, Caribbean disaster managers simulate and … [Read more...] about How to Strengthen Hurricane-Response and Recovery in a Global Pandemic
Protecting Tourism in the Caribbean through Smarter Crisis Management and Response Systems
When natural disasters strike, there are obvious immediate impacts. But long after the attention of the world shifts elsewhere, the effects of disasters like hurricanes, continue to negatively impact the growth and sustainability of Caribbean countries. One of the sectors that suffers the most is Tourism, which in many cases relies on physical attractiveness and the … [Read more...] about Protecting Tourism in the Caribbean through Smarter Crisis Management and Response Systems
Bringing ecosystem valuation/environmental accounting on the public balance sheet: the case for the Yallahs & Hope River watersheds in Jamaica
Over the course of the past two decades in the Caribbean, there have been various project attempts to develop environmental or natural capital accounting by promoting the application of economic valuation methods to land or marine based ecosystems. These efforts have often been mostly research-oriented, ad hoc, and locally targeted. None, if any, of them has materialized … [Read more...] about Bringing ecosystem valuation/environmental accounting on the public balance sheet: the case for the Yallahs & Hope River watersheds in Jamaica