Joan­na Kazana, Unit­ed Na­tions Res­i­dent Co­or­di­na­tor and rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the UN Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al in Trinidad and To­ba­go, Aru­ba, Cu­ra­cao, Sint Maarten and Suri­name

The Caribbean is step­ping for­ward as a pi­o­neer in de­liv­er­ing one of the most am­bi­tious glob­al cli­mate adap­ta­tion ini­tia­tives: Ear­ly Warn­ings for All, a com­mit­ment to en­sure that every per­son is pro­tect­ed by ear­ly warn­ing sys­tems by 2027.

In a ma­jor mile­stone, the Caribbean be­came the first re­gion in the world to for­mal­ly launch and be­gin im­ple­ment­ing this ini­tia­tive.

And that lead­er­ship was on full dis­play in Port of Spain on May 26, when re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners con­vened for the Re­gion­al Work­shop on Im­pact-Based Fore­cast and Warn­ing Ser­vices (IBFWS) and the Com­mon Alert­ing Pro­to­col (CAP) for the Caribbean, or­ga­nized by the Caribbean Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Or­ga­ni­za­tion and the World Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Or­ga­ni­za­tion.

For years, ear­ly warn­ing sys­tems have of­ten op­er­at­ed in pieces. Fore­casts would be is­sued, warn­ings dis­sem­i­nat­ed and com­mu­ni­ties ex­pect­ed to act even if the in­for­ma­tion was not clear or de­liv­ered in ad­e­quate time.

Across the re­gion, coun­tries are now build­ing end-to-end sys­tems that con­nect the sci­ence of fore­cast­ing with re­al-life de­ci­sion-mak­ing. This means mak­ing sure that warn­ings are clear, prac­ti­cal, time­ly, and able to reach every­one in­clud­ing those most at risk

This trans­for­ma­tion is be­ing pow­ered by strong part­ner­ships. At the cen­tre is the CREWS Caribbean 2.0 pro­gramme, which is sup­port­ing coun­tries to strength­en mul­ti-haz­ard ear­ly warn­ing sys­tems and close crit­i­cal gaps.

The CREWS pro­gramme brings to­geth­er key re­gion­al in­sti­tu­tions such as the Caribbean Me­te­o­ro­log­i­cal Or­ga­ni­za­tion (CMO), the Caribbean Dis­as­ter Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (CDE­MA), the Caribbean In­sti­tute for Me­te­o­rol­o­gy and Hy­drol­o­gy (CIMH), along­side glob­al part­ners in­clud­ing WMO, UN­DRR, ITU and the Red Cross move­ment.

This work is sup­port­ed by a ded­i­cat­ed group of donors, in­clud­ing the CREWS Trust Fund, the Green Cli­mate Fund, the Eu­ro­pean Union, and bi­lat­er­al donors.

One of the strengths of the Caribbean ap­proach is the spir­it of re­gion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty. Coun­tries are work­ing to­geth­er, learn­ing from each oth­er, and adapt­ing so­lu­tions to their own con­texts. This is South–South co­op­er­a­tion in ac­tion.

The re­sults are be­com­ing vis­i­ble. Across the re­gion coun­tries are de­vel­op­ing ear­ly warn­ing roadmaps and ac­tion plans, na­tion­al sys­tems are be­ing strength­ened and test­ed, alerts are al­ready reach­ing thou­sands of peo­ple in re­al time. Com­mu­ni­ties are be­ing trained and equipped to re­spond be­fore dis­as­ters strike. This is what suc­cess looks like: not just bet­ter fore­casts, but ear­li­er ac­tion, stronger pre­pared­ness and re­duced risk.

The re­gion­al ef­fort is re­flect­ed at coun­try lev­el, in­clud­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go, where the Unit­ed Na­tions sys­tem has been work­ing close­ly with gov­ern­ment and part­ners like the ODPM to strength­en re­silience across sec­tors and at the com­mu­ni­ty lev­el.

A key step has been the in­tro­duc­tion of the Dis­as­ter Risk In­for­ma­tion Man­age­ment Sys­tem (DRIMS), which is help­ing de­ci­sion-mak­ers bet­ter un­der­stand risks through im­proved da­ta and analy­sis. This al­lows for stronger plan­ning, bet­ter co­or­di­na­tion and more ef­fec­tive ear­ly warn­ing.

At the same time, dis­as­ter risk re­duc­tion is be­ing in­te­grat­ed in­to na­tion­al en­vi­ron­men­tal pol­i­cy. Through an in­clu­sive na­tion­al process, risk con­sid­er­a­tions are now in­form­ing the re­vi­sion of the coun­try’s Na­tion­al Bio­di­ver­si­ty Strat­e­gy and Ac­tion Plan, recog­nis­ing that pro­tect­ing ecosys­tems is es­sen­tial for re­silience to flood­ing, coastal haz­ards and en­vi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion.

Through the Com­mu­ni­ty Flood and Ear­ly Warn­ing Sys­tems ini­tia­tive, mon­i­tor­ing in­fra­struc­ture has been ex­pand­ed, strength­en­ing the coun­try’s abil­i­ty to de­tect and fore­cast flood­ing. Flood map­ping of high-risk ar­eas has im­proved lo­cal re­sponse mech­a­nisms, while com­mu­ni­ty train­ing has en­sured that res­i­dents un­der­stand how to act ear­ly when warn­ings are is­sued.

Im­por­tant­ly, this work places strong em­pha­sis on in­clu­sion. Women and girls, who of­ten face dif­fer­ent risks and bar­ri­ers in dis­as­ter con­texts, are be­ing ac­tive­ly en­gaged to en­sure that ear­ly warn­ing sys­tems re­spond to their spe­cif­ic needs. At the same time, par­tic­u­lar at­ten­tion is giv­en to per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties, to en­sure ear­ly warn­ing in­for­ma­tion is ac­ces­si­ble, in­clu­sive and re­spon­sive to di­verse needs.

Tak­en to­geth­er, these ef­forts demon­strate how the UN sys­tem, through its many spe­cialised agen­cies, is sup­port­ing a whole-of-so­ci­ety ap­proach to re­silience where da­ta, pol­i­cy, in­fra­struc­ture and com­mu­ni­ty ac­tion are ful­ly con­nect­ed.

As I looked around the room dur­ing the CREWS work­shop, I was struck by some­thing else.

What we are wit­ness­ing now is the emer­gence of a new and dy­nam­ic field of young me­te­o­rol­o­gists, hy­drol­o­gists and ear­ly warn­ing spe­cial­ists work­ing at the in­ter­sec­tion of sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy and pub­lic ser­vice.

They are work­ing with au­to­mat­ed sys­tems, in­no­v­a­tive tech­nolo­gies and cut­ting-edge sci­ence—of­ten build­ing these sys­tems even as they are be­ing de­ployed.

This is tru­ly a pro­fes­sion of the fu­ture.

There is still much work to be done. The 2027 dead­line is close, and progress must ac­cel­er­ate.

But what is hap­pen­ing in the Caribbean of­fers a pow­er­ful les­son.

The re­gion is show­ing how glob­al am­bi­tion can be trans­lat­ed in­to re­al, prac­ti­cal so­lu­tions and how even the most vul­ner­a­ble re­gions can lead. If this mo­men­tum con­tin­ues, the Caribbean will not on­ly pro­tect its peo­ple, it will help shape how the world ad­dress­es dis­as­ter risk in the years ahead.