Int’l interest in Global Resilience and Crisis Management Centre
DEVELOPMENT OF a Global Resilience and Crisis Management Centre in Jamaica to deal with climate-related issues has been attracting attention from international financial and academic interests, says Tourism Minister Edmund Bartlett.
He noted that his senior adviser, Dr Lloyd Waller, is in Cuba meeting with “particular persons who are interested in funding a significant element of the resilience centre,” and that “big multinational companies have already committed to it”.
“So, we are on track in terms of the global financial institutions that are showing interest,” he said at a ceremony to hand over satellite phones to six destination assurance managers, at his ministry’s New Kingston offices on Monday.
Bartlett noted that academic institutions on “every continent” are also showing interest in the centre.
They include Queensland University in Australia; Hong Kong Polytechnic in Hong Kong; Bournemouth University in the United Kingdom; and universities in the United States, such as George Washington and Harvard.
COMMITMENT FROM TOURISM LEADERSHIP
“We know already that the tourism leadership – World Travel and Tourism Council, Pacific Area Tourism Authority, United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), Caribbean Tourism Organization and the Caribbean Hotel and Tourist Association – have already committed and support this resilience institution,” he pointed out.
He informed, further, that talks are “going well” with Samsung to “power the information and communications technology for the centre”.
First announced during the UNWTO Global Conference on Sustainable Tourism in St James in November 2017, the centre, which is the first of its kind, will be tasked with creating, producing and generating toolkits, guidelines and policies to handle the recovery process following a disaster.
To be based at the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies, the facility will include a Sustainable Tourism Observatory, which will assist with preparedness, management and recovery from disruptions and/or crises that impact tourism and threaten economies and livelihoods.