17 July 2013: The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) launched a US$23.5 million Community Disaster Risk Reduction Trust Fund (CDRRF) that will provide grants to support community-based disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation demonstration projects.

CDRRF will provide grants ranging in value from US$400,000 to US$650,000 to address local disaster risk, climate change vulnerabilities and risk reduction needs of each community. By offering communities direct access to grants, CDB hopes to cut transaction costs, deliver quicker benefits, better reflect local priorities and increase community ownership, involvement and supervision of DRR and climate change adaptation activities.

CDB’s Project Manager for the Disaster Risk Reduction Fund, Mr. Leslie Walling, notes that the CDRRF has been designed to provide direct and responsive support for projects that address the specific, local disaster risk, climate change circumstances and risk reduction needs of each target community.

“Although extreme natural hazard events such as hurricanes, storms, droughts and climate change effects such as sea-level rise may affect an entire country, in the final analysis, all disasters are local phenomena. This means that disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation must, by definition, be a fundamentally local affair,” Walling said.

The CDRRF grants are available to all CDB Borrowing Member Countries except Haiti, i.e. Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, and Turks and Caicos Islands. Organizations eligible to submit proposals for the grants include non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and community-based organizations, regional and national research institutions, and government agencies. Grants will be provided to those projects that can provide clearly identifiable, measurable, results-based benefits for local communities, and that are gender and environmentally sensitive. Priority will be given to resilience building, vulnerability reduction, and adaptation projects that address livelihood needs.

CDRRF will also fund a methodology and set of guidelines for mainstreaming DRR and climate change adaptation considerations in each participating countries’ Country Poverty Assessment process undertaken with the Bank’s support.

The CDRRF was established with joint financing provided by Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development and the UK’s Department for International Development.

CAPTION: The Community Disaster Risk Reduction Trust Fund will provide grants to vulnerable communities for community-based disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation demonstration projects.