Bridgetown, Barbados November 12th, 2020 – The Caribbean Risk Information System (CRIS) platform was officially launched on November 12, 2020, by CDEMA, to fulfil its mandate of enhanced knowledge management in the Caribbean. The CRIS was designed to serve as the ‘one stop shop’ for hosting a wealth of information, contributing to the evidenced based decision making processes to build disaster resilient states and promote sustainable development in the region. 

The official online event brought together disaster management partners from around the world to interact with the revamped platform. 

The CRIS executes CDEMA’s mandate to “provide a clearing house for relevant information and intelligence on all matters relating to disasters including current research being undertaken in all related institutions.” It comprises three main components, the GeoCRIS, Virtual Library and Databases, which were built to provide information on disaster risks, climate change adaptation, geospatial data and knowledge on disaster events for the 19 CDEMA Participating States. The CRIS will also host a real time decision support platform for emergencies. 

Executive Director (ag) of CDEMA Elizabeth Riley said, “The CRIS is fully aligned with our institutional vision to maximize the enabling role that Information and Communication Technology will increasingly play in the delivery of our institutional mandate. This will feature more prominently in the CDEMA Coordinating Unit’s programming going forward.”

Joaquin Toro, Lead Disaster Risk Management Specialist at the World Bank for Latin America and the Caribbean, emphasized the importance of the CRIS as a place for the contribution of disaster risk information to the Caribbean. “I think this platform brings together the best of the technology that is available, it brings the innovation on disaster management and I think it has a place in the Caribbean that did not exist before on which we can really share information.”

Bogdan Stefanescu, Team Leader Green Economy, Energy and Resilience, EU Delegation to Barbados, also said “I cannot outline enough how important is knowledge and information sharing. Countries work better when exchanging knowledge to learn from each other, in a critical sector like disaster risk reduction.”

This phase of the CRIS was developed in collaboration with the World Bank with financial support from the European Union (EU) in the framework of the ACP-EU Natural Disaster Risk Reduction Program, managed by the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery. Additional resources are also provided by the Canadian Government through Global Affairs Canada to the further development and awareness of the CRIS.

Visit cdema.org/cris/ for more details.