The Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty Cli­mate Change Cen­tre (CC­C­CC) of­fi­cial­ly broke ground for the con­struc­tion of its new head­quar­ters at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Be­lize (UB) Bel­mopan Cam­pus last Wednes­day.

The cer­e­mo­ny marked the 20th an­niver­sary of the Cen­tre. It al­so sig­naled a for­mal ex­pan­sion of its long­stand­ing part­ner­ship with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Be­lize. The new fa­cil­i­ty is in­tend­ed to serve as the per­ma­nent base for the CC­C­CC and a hub for re­gion­al cli­mate ac­tion.

The event was at­tend­ed by Prime Min­is­ter of Be­lize John Briceño, Prime Min­is­ter of Saint Lu­cia Philip Pierre, CARI­COM Deputy Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Arm­strong Alex­is, Min­is­ters from Bar­ba­dos, Do­mini­ca, Grena­da and Saint Lu­cia, and mem­bers of the CC­C­CC Board of Gov­er­nors.

Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor of the CC­C­CC Col­in Young stat­ed that the part­ner­ship would ad­vance re­gion­al goals of cli­mate re­silience, sus­tain­abil­i­ty, and adap­ta­tion. He not­ed the sig­nif­i­cance of re­turn­ing to the lo­ca­tion where the Cen­tre first op­er­at­ed in a sin­gle room dur­ing its ear­ly days.

Pres­i­dent of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Be­lize Vin­cent Pala­cio an­nounced that five acres of land had been al­lo­cat­ed for the Cen­tre’s de­vel­op­ment. He stat­ed that the Uni­ver­si­ty saw the part­ner­ship as a nec­es­sary col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween ed­u­ca­tion and na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

Prime Min­is­ter Briceño said the ground­break­ing brought a vi­sion to life that be­gan in 1998, when Prime Min­is­ter Said Musa led the ini­tia­tive for Be­lize to host the Cen­tre. He ac­knowl­edged sup­port from oth­er lead­ers, in­clud­ing for­mer Prime Min­is­ter of Bar­ba­dos Owen Arthur.

Prime Min­is­ter Pierre wel­comed the part­ner­ship be­tween the Uni­ver­si­ty and the CC­C­CC. He urged Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Shawn Ed­ward to pur­sue stu­dent en­roll­ment at UB. Pierre de­scribed the fa­cil­i­ty as a po­ten­tial Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence that could gen­er­ate re­gion­al cli­mate so­lu­tions through re­search and aca­d­e­m­ic col­lab­o­ra­tion.

He not­ed the im­por­tance of re­gion­al in­sti­tu­tions in un­der­stand­ing and re­spond­ing to the unique en­vi­ron­men­tal chal­lenges fac­ing Caribbean states.

In re­sponse, Prime Min­is­ter Briceño of­fered schol­ar­ships to Saint Lu­cian stu­dents wish­ing to study at UB.

The CC­C­CC and UB had ear­li­er signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing out­lin­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion on tech­ni­cal train­ing and re­search. The new fa­cil­i­ty is ex­pect­ed to give this aca­d­e­m­ic and sci­en­tif­ic part­ner­ship a per­ma­nent lo­ca­tion.

Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor Young thanked the Board of Di­rec­tors of the Uni­ver­si­ty, Chair God­frey Smith, and Pres­i­dent Pala­cio for their role in es­tab­lish­ing the part­ner­ship. He cred­it­ed their sup­port with help­ing the Cen­tre reach this stage in its de­vel­op­ment.