Cana­da is pro­vid­ing funds to as­sist Caribbean coun­tries in the wake of the de­struc­tion caused by Hur­ri­cane Beryl as it bar­reled its way through the re­gion last week.

In­ter­na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter, Ahmed Hussen said that hu­man­i­tar­i­an as­sis­tance will al­low its hu­man­i­tar­i­an part­ners to pro­vide life-sav­ing as­sis­tance, such as emer­gency food and nu­tri­tion ser­vices, pro­tec­tion and lo­gis­tics ser­vices, and to en­sure that hu­man­i­tar­i­an goods are dis­patched and that hu­man­i­tar­i­an work­ers con­tin­ue to be able to re­spond to the cri­sis in the face of daunt­ing chal­lenges.

He said that with cli­mate-re­lat­ed nat­ur­al dis­as­ters on the rise and glob­al warm­ing lead­ing to an in­crease in trop­i­cal storms, Cana­da is “pre­pared to sup­port peo­ple af­fect­ed by se­vere weath­er crises.

“Cana­da is com­mit­ted to work­ing with part­ners around the world on glob­al en­vi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty and emer­gency pre­pared­ness to en­sure a safer fu­ture for all. With cli­mate-re­lat­ed dis­as­ters like Hur­ri­cane Beryl caus­ing cat­a­stroph­ic dam­age, Cana­da is sup­port­ing those most in need.

“Our ini­tial re­sponse will go to­ward meet­ing the most im­me­di­ate and ur­gent needs in the Caribbean re­gion with emer­gency es­sen­tials like wa­ter, food and health­care sup­plies.

“Our thoughts are with all those af­fect­ed dur­ing these dif­fi­cult times, and we con­tin­ue to work close­ly with our part­ners to meet the evolv­ing needs,” said Hussen, not­ing that Cana­da is send­ing re­lief sup­plies to Ja­maica from its emer­gency stock­piles man­aged by the Cana­di­an Red Cross.

Hussen said CAD$500,000 (One Cana­da dol­lar=US$0.74 cents) will be al­lo­cat­ed to the Unit­ed Na­tions’ World Food Pro­gramme (WFP) for emer­gency food as­sis­tance and lo­gis­tics ser­vices with CAD$160,000 be­ing al­lo­cat­ed to the In­ter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion of Red Cross and Red Cres­cent So­ci­eties re­lief op­er­a­tions in re­sponse to its ap­peal for St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines, Grena­da and Ja­maica.

In ad­di­tion, the Min­is­ter of In­ter­na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment said Cana­da is al­so de­ploy­ing es­sen­tial re­lief items to the Ja­maica Red Cross val­ued at up to CAD$350,000. He said Ot­tawa is al­so pro­vid­ing CAD$200,000 to the Bar­ba­dos-based Caribbean Dis­as­ter Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (CDE­MA) for the mo­bi­liza­tion of re­gion­al de­ploy­ment teams and pro­vi­sion of di­rect sup­port to coun­tries re­quir­ing im­me­di­ate re­sponse.

Through the Build Back Equal project, Hussen said Cana­da is con­tribut­ing to UN Women and UN Pop­u­la­tion Fund ef­forts to dis­trib­ute hy­giene and dig­ni­ty prod­uct kits in Grena­da and in St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he said Cana­da is sup­port­ing emer­gency hu­man­i­tar­i­an per­son­nel de­ploy­ment on the ground in the Caribbean, in­clud­ing through fund­ing pro­vid­ed to the Unit­ed Na­tions Dis­as­ter As­sess­ment and Co­or­di­na­tion and the Cana­di­an Red Cross.

Cana­da is al­so sup­port­ing the re­gion’s prepa­ra­tions for ma­jor dis­as­ters be­fore they hap­pen through the WFP’s Re­silience and En­hanced Adapt­abil­i­ty to Dis­as­ters in the Caribbean project, Hussen said.

OT­TAWA, Cana­da, Jul 10, CMC

CMC/2024