The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for Barbados and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), through the Regional Risk Reduction Initiative (R3I) project, funded by the European Union, will host a Knowledge Sharing Event on Thursday, 24 May 2012 from 8:00 a.m. to 6:15 p.m. at Grand Cayman Marriott Beach Resort, Cayman Islands

The opening ceremony will be between 8:00 a.m. to 8:45 a.m. Taking part will be Mr. Franz Manderson, Deputy Governor, Mr. Stein Hansen, Deputy Resident Representative, UNDP Barbados and the OECS and  Ms. Danielle Evanson, R3I, Project Officer, UNDP Barbados and the OECS

The event will see presentations from Anguilla, Aruba, British Virgin Islands, and Cayman Islands. Monsterrat and Sint Maarten, on the initiatives undertaken, to improve their disaster preparedness and response, through the UNDP implemented project

The Regional Risk Reductive Initiative  (R3I) is €4.932 million project started in 2009 to address the risk and exposure of the small islands by providing a network of regional infrastructure, programmes, policies, and protocols to strengthen their capacity to predict and prepare for natural hazards.  The project is part of a larger UNDP Barbados and the OECS Programme on disaster risk reduction to support countries in improving their abilities to manage disasters, reduce risks and improve their abilities to respond to emergency events.

The following, UNDP officials, Directors of Disaster Management and Experts are amongst those presenting at the workshop :

Mr. Stein Hansen, Deputy Resident Representative, UNDP Barbados and the OECS

Mr. Ian King, Programme Manager, Disaster Risk Reduction, UNDP Barbados and the OECS

Mr. Franz Manderson, Deputy Governor, Cayman Islands

Mr. McCleary Frederick, Director, Hazard Management, Cayman Islands

Mr. Rino Hermans, Crisis Management Office, Aruba

Ms. Melissa Meade, Director, Department of Disaster Management (DDM), Anguilla

Ms. Sharleen DaBreao, Director, Department of Disaster Management (DDM), British Virgin Islands

Mr. Jacob Opadeyi, Prof of Geomatics, Engineering and Land Management, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago

Mr. Arthur Botterall, EWS and Communications Expert, USA

These workshops are part of the UNDP Barbados and the OECS three-day capacity building workshop to train participants in the use of geographical information systems (GIS) for disaster management, land use planning and development. The workshop commences on Monday, 21 May in the Cayman Islands.

This fourth regional workshop will focus on introducing officials from Anguilla, Aruba, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Montserrat and Sint Maarten to the field of remote sensing and digital image processing and its importance to disaster risk management, and to demonstrate approaches, tools and methodologies for extracting and analysing remotely sense data. It is envisaged that by the end of the training, these countries will have better national capacity to:

• Understand electromagnetic spectrum, and how it applies to remote sensing;
• Interpret the basic features and characteristics of earth surfaces on satellite imagery; and
• Know how to extract and interpret information from remotely sensed data.

Participants will also benefit from shared experiences on the initiatives undertaken to improve their disaster preparedness and response, through the Knowledge Sharing Event on Thursday.

For more information on the project, please visit www.bb.undp.org/regional-risk-reduction-initiative.