The Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty Cli­mate Change Cen­tre (CC­C­CC) has ap­point­ed Mans­field Black­wood as its new As­sis­tant Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor.

Black­wood has more than 30 years of ex­pe­ri­ence in in­ter­na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment and pri­vate sec­tor lead­er­ship across the re­gion.

He will pro­vide over­sight and tech­ni­cal guid­ance to the Pro­gramme De­vel­op­ment and Man­age­ment Di­vi­sion and the Tech­ni­cal Ser­vices Di­vi­sion. His du­ties will al­so in­clude sup­port­ing en­gage­ment with na­tion­al, re­gion­al, and in­ter­na­tion­al stake­hold­ers, strength­en­ing the Cen­tre’s project pipeline, guid­ing cli­mate fi­nance pro­pos­als, and ad­vanc­ing in­sti­tu­tion­al tar­gets.

Pri­or to join­ing the CC­C­CC, Black­wood served for 20 years with the Unit­ed States Agency for In­ter­na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment (US­AID) in Bar­ba­dos. At US­AID, he held the po­si­tions of Part­ner Coun­try Sys­tems Ad­vi­sor and Se­nior Tech­ni­cal Spe­cial­ist. He worked with re­gion­al or­ga­ni­za­tions in­clud­ing the Or­ga­ni­za­tion of East­ern Caribbean States, CARI­COM, and the CC­C­CC.

His work fo­cused on cli­mate change adap­ta­tion, dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness, post-dis­as­ter re­cov­ery, clean en­er­gy, bio­di­ver­si­ty, and cit­i­zen se­cu­ri­ty. He was the Mis­sion’s pri­ma­ry li­ai­son with min­istries across 10 Caribbean gov­ern­ments and re­ceived two Su­pe­ri­or Ho­n­our Awards for his con­tri­bu­tions, in­clud­ing work in Haiti af­ter the 2010 earth­quake.

Ear­li­er in his ca­reer, Black­wood was Gen­er­al Man­ag­er of LOJ Prop­er­ty Man­age­ment in Ja­maica, man­ag­ing more than 200 staff. He al­so held a civ­il en­gi­neer­ing role with Alu­mi­na Part­ners of Ja­maica, over­see­ing in­fra­struc­ture projects.

Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor of the CC­C­CC, Col­in Young, said Black­wood’s ex­pe­ri­ence and re­gion­al knowl­edge will sup­port the Cen­tre’s man­date to ac­cel­er­ate cli­mate ac­tion.

Black­wood as­sumes du­ties on Sep­tem­ber 15 at the CC­C­CC Head­quar­ters in Bel­mopan, Be­lize.