Interreg Ready Together Project Featured at COP26

At COP26 in Glasgow Scotland, a recurrent theme during discussions, presentations, and negotiations among Parties, was for Small Island Developing States to find innovative ways to build resilience to deal with natural disasters – an ever-present reality for OECS Member States. Several ongoing projects designed to assist in this manner were featured during the two-week event, including the “READY Together” Project – a four million Euro Interreg Project, designed to strengthen the emergency preparedness and response capacities of the Caribbean territories, targeting three main groups:

1. Institutions and emergency actors,
2. Economic actors; and
3. Local populations.

The programme has a budget of €6,600,000, and is being executed over a four-year period – January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2022.

The over 30,000 participants at COP26 were made aware of the practical solutions being adopted and implemented through the Ready Together initiative to bolster responses to disasters such as hurricanes and floods in the beneficiary countries.

Eight Caribbean countries are the primary beneficiaries, namely, Antigua & Barbuda, Dominica, French Guyana, Guadeloupe, Haiti, Martinique, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines – six of which are OECS Member States.

The READY Together Project seeks to:

• Create awareness of natural risk and climate change adaptation
• Build resilience of economic actors through business preparedness
• Develop an impact-based forecasting, early warning and action system
• Develop innovative technologies, emergency response and capacity building
• Foster advocacy for mainstreaming disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation and international disaster response law into legislations

The global approach of the READY Together project complements ongoing OECS projects in the Caribbean region. This approach includes strengthening coordination mechanisms to improve crisis preparedness and response, and strengthening institutional and legal frameworks. In addition, the cooperation established with the Contractors' Associations and the Chambers of Commerce and Industry support the OECS objectives of economic and social integration. 

The OECS is playing a leading role in supporting the implementation of the project's actions through its three operational components and is confident that projects such as these will continue to bring a glimmer of hope to the Caribbean Region, as it strives to adapt to the changes brought on by global warming and climate change.