Reducing Disaster Risks: Progress and Challenges in the Caribbean Region

Are we winning or losing the battle for safe environments? In 1984, leading disaster risk management professionals and researchers met in Jamaica for the Ocho Rios conference on Disaster Mitigation. In this collection, key experts reflect on the progress made in disaster risk reduction since that conference, with a particular emphasis on the Caribbean.

Areas of focus include:

• trends in disaster risk management
• the links between disaster risk management and development
• the development of community based actions
• the efficacy of regulations to achieve safety
• the evolution of risk management institutions.

The resulting volume provides a comprehensive overview of progress in the field and will be of interest to all those involved in disaster risk management and development.

Ian Davis is currently Senior Professor in Disaster Risk Management for Sustainable Development in Lund University, Sweden and Visiting Professor in Cranfield, Oxford Brookes and Kyoto Universities .

Stephen Bender was a division chief of the Department of Sustainable Development of the Organization of American States (retired) and currently serves as a consultant to UN specialized organizations, multilateral development banks and bilateral development assistance agencies.

Fred Krimgold is a member of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, The American Society of Civil Engineers and the National Institute of Building Sciences Consultative Council. He currently serves as Co-Director of the World Institute for Disaster Risk Management and as a consultant to the Disaster Management Facility of the World Bank. His principal areas of research have included seismic design decision analysis, benefit/cost analysis of earthquake mitigation measures, post-earthquake search and rescue, institutional development for disaster management and market incentives for mitigation investment.

Franklin McDonald is an Engineering Geologist, former head of Jamaica's national environmental, sustainable development and hazard mitigation focal institutions and coordinator of the University of the West Indies Institute for Sustainable Development. He is an Advisor to the UWI Disaster Risk Reduction Centre.