THE VALLEY, Anguilla, 20 May 2005 - The Government of Anguilla has approved a number of recommendations contained in a Comprehensive Disaster Management Strategy CDM study, which was funded, by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office through the Office of an Disaster Management Adviser for the Overseas Territories.

The study resulted in a Strategic Review of the island’s disaster management capabilities and the recommendations seek to move away from a predominant focus on hurricane preparedness and response to a much broader approach, which places emphasis on reducing Anguilla’s vulnerability to hazards and risks of all kinds.

These include working more closely with the private and non-government sectors; establishing very clear priorities for the National Disaster Office; identifying specific programmes that can be implemented in the short and medium term and ensuring that responsibility for the leadership of all programmes emerging from the strategy rests largely with the people of Anguilla.

National Disaster prepardeness Co-ordinator, Mr Wycliffe Richardson says the strategy provides guidance and a framework to design and carry out programmes and activities that will in future make Anguilla less vulnerable to the negative effects of hazards and incidents of all kinds.

“The strategy has put forward recommendations to change our focus towards hazards to ensure risk reduction as well as preparedness and to consolidate the island’s national disaster office and integrate disaster management into national development planning,” Mr Richardson added.

United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) Disaster Management Adviser, Mr Roger Bellers, is in Anguilla assisting the island to attain appropriate standards of disaster risk reduction as well as to offer support and technical assistance to implement the CDM strategy recently approved by the Executive Council.

FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:
Mr Wycliffe Richardson
Disaster Preparedness Coordinator
National Disaster Organization
P.O. Box 296,
The Valley
Anguilla
Tel: (264) 497-5666/5667
Fax: (264) 497-2378
Email: axaeoc@anguillanet.com