Continued from previous page major political parties to agree that vulnerability reduction is a national and regional priority for every country in the Region. Guyana might not experience hurricanes but it sometimes has devastating floods. 2. Accept the fact that Climate Change will make us more vulnerable to hurricanes and storms and plan accordingly. We need to redefine Disaster Mitigation to include a much greater emphasis on Climate Change Adaptation. 3. Set up and maintain more appropriate mechanisms for monitoring construction methods and enforcing Building Codes. 4. Deepen cross-sectoral economic planning, both regionally and nationally, that is collectively as a region and in each country: Environment Agriculture Fisheries Tourism Health Education Infrastructure 5. Involve, engage and empower of our people to build capacity for IMPLEMENTATION. Too many people are happy to TALK a good day’s work. We need to meet Goals and achieve the Results. In other words, we need top produce the desired Outputs not just the pretty sounding words. 6. Speak louder and maintain a unified voice globally at all relevant fora. Base our stances on global science but respect the knowledge of our own people. 7. Invest more time and money in documenting the management lessons learnt in previous disasters. Our region should be generating material that can teach all small island developing states but we cannot do it if we do not make the effort to produce the books, case studies and videos. Thank you for this opportunity to speak with you and I would be happy for us to continue this discussion at some point in the future. Thank you on behalf of CARICAD. 19
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