The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), through its partnership with the Green Climate Fund (GCF), is financing a USD 27.1 million initiative to scale up hydrometeorological services and multi-hazard early warning systems in Belize and Trinidad and Tobago, strengthening those countries’ ability to anticipate, prepare for and respond to climate-related hazards and extreme weather events.
The project is being financed primarily through a USD 24.1 million grant, approved by the GCF and channelled through CDB. The bank will also provide USD 1.2 million in grant financing while USD 1.88 million in counterpart funding will come from the governments of Belize and Trinidad and Tobago. The project will be implemented by the Caribbean Meteorological Organisation, the Region’s specialised institution for meteorology and climate services, in partnership with national meteorological and disaster management agencies in the beneficiary countries. The initiative will strengthen the countries’ capacity to detect, monitor, analyse, forecast and communicate information on weather, water and climate-related hazards. It will also support improvements in disaster risk management, climate information services, institutional capacity, and the delivery of timely warnings to vulnerable communities, helping to reduce loss and damage from increasingly frequent and severe climate-related events.
Belize and Trinidad and Tobago, like many Caribbean countries, continue to face growing threats from climate change, including hurricanes, flooding, droughts, heatwaves and sea-level rise. Strengthened early warning systems are recognised as one of the most critical and cost-effective tools for protecting lives, livelihoods, infrastructure and critical economic sectors.
