BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, Jul. 28, CMC – The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) has approved funds to address the high incidence of damage to the road infrastructure in Caribbean countries by natural hazard events and the potential for the loss of roads by rising sea levels.
Through a technical assistance project, the Bank provide US$768,000 to fund a study on approaches for mainstreaming climate resilience into the road transport sector in its Borrowing Member Countries (BMCs).
In a release on Thursday, the CDB notes that each year, the transport infrastructure in the Caribbean, and particularly road infrastructure, suffers substantial damage as a result of natural hazard events, with flooding being among the most frequent and costly of events.
It also noted that the threat to road transport infrastructure is heightened by the projected effects of Climate Variability and Climate Change, particularly increased intensity of rainstorms, sea level rise, and increased ambient temperatures.
The study will be done in two countries, which will be selected on the basis of geography and risk profiles that would allow for the outputs of the study to be transferable to other countries.
CDB’s Director of Projects, Daniel Best, says most of the road agencies across the Bank’s BMCs have not mainstreamed changes in their approaches or requirements for the design, construction and management of road infrastructure that enhance resilience to the threats from natural hazards and climate change.
“This is, in part, due to the limited availability of tools tailored for their particular use, as well as the limited data and capacity within the responsible agencies with regard to the assessment of the vulnerability of infrastructure to climate risks and the determination of appropriate response strategies,” Best noted.
“The differential impacts on women and men, youth, the aging population and persons with disabilities arising from the vulnerability of road infrastructure have also not been adequately considered across the BMCs. Issues of inclusivity and gender must be integrated into the operation of the road transport sector, in infrastructure and in road transport services,” he said.
Some of the activities to be completed under the project include – a sector-wide, gender-sensitive climate risk and vulnerability assessment; the assessment of relevant policies, plans, strategies, legal and regulatory frameworks and proposals to build capacity to implement resilience measures and the development of an index to measure the level of resilience in the road transport sector
The project is being implemented under the African Caribbean Pacific-European Union-Caribbean Development Bank Natural Disaster Risk Management in CARIFORUM Countries Programme.
