Consultancy for Resilience Mapping, Action Plan, and Awareness Raising for Public Officials in The Commonwealth of Dominica
Details:
The GoCD has launched an agenda to make Dominica the first climate resilient nation in the world. Inherent in this goal is the pursuit of a number of objectives, which have been elaborated in three national documents: The National Resilient Development Strategy (NRDS), the Climate Resilience and RecoveryPlan (CRRP) and the Manifesto of the Dominica Labour Party (called “Dynamic Dominica”). Inter alia, these promise a campaign of activities and investments that will pursueresilience, innovation, and prosperity. The CRRP has a set of 20 targets to be achieved by 2030, and related outcomes, however identifying where progress has been made and targets achieved will be difficult because baseline information against which to measure progress is scant. This data will in some cases be readily available –it is information held by different ministries. Collecting together the data and making public officials aware of the CRRP goals and how they can contribute to them, is therefore critical to institutionalizing the resilience agenda within the public service in Dominica.
The CRRP 2020-2030 has been adopted by the GoCD and is ambitious in its goal and targets, but for implementation to be achieved and progress to be demonstrated much greater ownership of the plan is needed across the public service in Dominica. At present, many government officials do not see how their agency can contribute, and continue to plan and implement activities that are unrelated to the CRRP and may or may not be contributing to a robust economy, strong communities, enhanced collective consciousness, strengthened institutional systems, protection and leveraging of natural and other assets and well-planned, durable infrastructure. This is in part due to their lack of familiarity with the CRRP and the concepts, results areas and targets therein. It is also due to the fact that baseline data is partial and fragmented. Few government officials have an overview of the current situation with respect to Dominica’s resilience (if situation is better/worse than before and after Maria). Without this information it is difficult to know what level of effort is needed and where attention should be focused. It may be that for some targets Dominica is already well on track to achieving them through continued implementation of existing initiatives. For others,a concerted cross-government effort will be required.
A baseline assessment of relevant resilience initiatives is therefore critical –to identify where data already exists, gaps and further data collection needs, progress already achieved and CRRP priority areas. By engaging with the consultant in this assessment, staff will better understand what data they have available –and can collect through project implementation–that will help to demonstrate achievement. Even where GoCD staff are familiar with the CRRP they may find the range of challenges presented, targets that need to be met and initiatives that need to be taken forward overwhelming. This can produce inertia. An Action Plan can help overcome this inertia, focusing on priorities areas and setting out a timeline, so actions are sequenced and the Strategic Plans of ministries can be tailored accordingly over the next 9 years.
Accordingly, the Government of Dominica has launched this consultancywhich will provide support to the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Planning, Resilience, Sustainable Development, Telecommunications (‘Ministryof Planning’)