AM­CHAM T&T, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment (ODPM), and the Unit­ed Na­tions In­ter­na­tion­al Chil­dren's Emer­gency Fund (UNICEF) host­ed a work­shop to en­hance col­lab­o­ra­tion and co­or­di­na­tion of Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment in T&T last week Thurs­day at the Radis­son Ho­tel, Port of Spain with rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tors, and civ­il so­ci­ety or­ga­ni­za­tions.

The ini­tia­tive is part of the pro­gramme of ac­tiv­i­ties AM­CHAM T&T has un­der­tak­en as the Pri­vate Sec­tor Al­liance for Re­silient So­ci­eties (ARISE) lead for Trinidad and To­ba­go, which works to­wards a re­silient, pros­per­ous fu­ture where few­er lives are lost to dis­as­ters; cap­i­tal as­sets and in­vest­ments are risk-in­formed; and in­fra­struc­ture is re­silient to nat­ur­al and man-made haz­ards.

The work­shop en­ti­tled “Strength­en­ing Pub­lic and Pri­vate Sec­tor Co­or­di­na­tion for Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” aimed to en­hance the de­liv­ery of hu­man­i­tar­i­an aid and dis­as­ter re­sponse through the strength­en­ing of part­ner­ships be­tween the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors.

It al­so fo­cused on ad­vanc­ing a re­source map­ping project, which com­menced last year, and sup­port­ing lo­gis­tics soft­ware for ef­fi­cient­ly track­ing and ac­cess­ing goods and ser­vices dur­ing hu­man­i­tar­i­an aid op­er­a­tions.

Al­so in at­ten­dance were rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment’s Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Units and the To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency.