CSOs for Disaster Resilience: Empowering civil society and local communities to build resilience to hurricanes and climate extremes in the Eastern Caribbean

Recognising the need for more effective engagement of local communities and civil society organisations (CSOs) in disaster risk reduction and building resilience, from October 2022-October 2025, the Caribbean Natural Resources Institute (CANARI) will undertake a second phase of the project entitled “CSOs for Disaster Resilience: Empowering civil society and local communities to build resilience to hurricanes and climate extremes in the Eastern Caribbean.”  Building on an initial phase of work implemented from September 2019- September 2022, the project aims to improve resilience for local communities, associated livelihoods and ecosystems to hurricanes and climate extremes in the Eastern Caribbean using community-based and ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction (CBDRR/Eco-DRR) approaches. The focus is on engaging at-risk communities in decision-making, and on conservation, sustainable management and restoration of natural ecosystems, to reduce disaster risk and help people and systems adapt.

It specifically targets Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines and will work with eight partner CSOs and community stakeholders in eight high-risk communities across the target countries to build their resilience through: capacity building; mobilising local knowledge and partnerships; and supporting practical CBDRR and Eco-DRR actions on the ground. Phase II of the project is funded by a US$390,000 grant from the Inter-American Foundation. See here for  the project summary.

Highlights:

  • Phase II:
    • The Caribbean Resilience Knowledge Platform was launched in August 2023, as an online hub to support knowledge sharing, learning and collaboration among civil society organisations and their public and private sector partners to scale up action for climate justice and resilience across the region.
    • A GIS StoryMap was produced on “Building Caribbean Resilience: A spotlight on civil society action to build local resilience”, to highlight civil society role and contributions to building climate and disaster resilience in the region.
    • A regional Training of Trainer workshop was held on “Building Local Resilience to Climate Change” on June 20-23, 2023, in Port of Spain, Trinidad. Check out video highlights here. Over 40 civil society representatives from 12 Caribbean countries learned about key concepts, practical tools and approaches and best practices for assessing vulnerability, local action planning and community-based and ecosystem-based solutions to build resilience.

    Phase I:

Key Activities 

Component 1: Strengthening CSOs to deliver integrated community-based and ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction (CBDRR/Eco-DRR). This includes technical capacity building of partner CSOs and community stakeholders to deliver CBDRR/Eco-DRR solutions via a training-of-trainers workshop, technical training webinars and exchange visits. It also includes organisational strengthening of partner CSOs via a tailored mentoring programme, and development of a toolkit on mentoring Caribbean CSOs to support further action.

Component 2: Supporting practical actions using integrated CBDRR and Eco-DRR to improve local resilience. This will focus on scaling out practical actions by partner CSOs to build resilience in the eight target communities using CBDRR/Eco-DRR solutions. Partner CSOs will be supported via small grants and technical coaching to lead participatory community vulnerability assessments and adaptation planning and use the results to design and implement a small grant project addressing identified resilience challenges.

Component 3: Enhancing knowledge mobilisation and partnerships for integrated CBDRR and Eco-DRR. This will focus on mobilising knowledge and partnerships through facilitating national dialogues on resilience priorities in target project countries and a regional dialogue on community resilience in the Caribbean and what is needed to scale this up, and documenting and sharing project results, lessons and best practices including via an online knowledge platform.

Component 4: Monitoring, evaluation and learning. This will include mid-term and final independent evaluations to assess overall impact, results, lessons, and recommendations from the project, and the production of stories of change of locally-led adaptation and nature-based solutions.

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For more information, please contact Candice Ramkissoon, Senior Technical Officer at [email protected]

See related work under CANARI’s Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction Programme