The doctrine of resilience, Part 2
None of them appeared to have said anything specifically on whether the lessons learned from COVID-19 can be applied to the novel risks posed to Jamaica by climate change
WHEN I sat down to write part one of this article during the last week of October, I had no clue that I would return to the subject.
Weeks later, I was gratified to learn that there are more important ‘apostles’ around who believe in the doctrine of resilience. Also, that they recognise that the novel coronavirus COVID-19 provides valuable lessons, and that if they are learned, and applied, they can contribute to Jamaica’s growth and development, despite the many hazards that threaten.
Learning and applying these lessons about resilience are important given the challenges facing the country by another major risk: climate change.
Director General of the Planning Institute of Jamaica Dr Wayne Henry and Minister of Health & Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton, according to a November 9 Jamaica Information Service report, are among the disciples spreading the gospel. Prime Minister Andrew Holness and Minister of Finance & the Public Service Dr Nigel Clarke are also missionaries, as part one of this article explained.
Drs Henry and Clarke were recent participants in a forum that formed part of the seventh semi-virtual Regional Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction in the Americas and the Caribbean. The theme was ‘Building Resilient Economies in the Americas and the Caribbean’. While their contributions to the discussions were insightful and forward-looking, something important was missing.
Assuming the JIS report was accurate, none of them appeared to have thought about or said anything specifically about whether the lessons learned from COVID-19 can be applied to the novel risks posed to the island by climate change. Other persons, including me, have been writing about this topic with increasing frequency. The contributions of these two government officials took place while the United Nations Climate Change Conference, also referred to as COP26, was being held in Glasgow, Scotland.
A 392-page peer-reviewed report 360° Resilience: A Guide to prepare the Caribbean for a New Generation of Shocks, produced by the staff of the World Bank and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery, with external contributions, mysteriously appeared on my computer monitor last Tuesday. It and the JIS reports featuring the two disciples set the stage for today’s article.
To cite a passage from the World Bank report (Page 393): “Caribbean countries have a history of dealing with large economic and natural hazards, from swings in global commodity prices to hurricanes, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions. The region has built relatively high levels of resilience over time, and despite recurring damages (sic) from shocks, has been able to achieve long-term development progress. But resilience in the region relies largely on informal mechanisms that do not systematically protect the poor and most vulnerable. As a result, some people are left behind. To tackle the challenges posed by climate change, new diseases, and changing socio-economic contexts, countries need a new strategy that considers the social, micro, and macroeconomic aspects of resilience in an integrated framework, and is tailored to the Caribbean context.
“This report takes a 360-degree approach to resilience, assessing progress and identifying gaps across all sectors in 17 Caribbean countries (excluding Cuba and Puerto Rico). It presents a comprehensive framework to help countries in this region piece together their mostly scattered sectoral efforts into a comprehensive strategy for building resilience to a new generation of shocks.”
The report assesses the historical and future impacts of shocks in the Caribbean, policy responses to those shocks, and gaps in resilience building. It offers two main findings and a series of recommendations for policymakers.
The second of the two findings of the report was not surprising. Also, it reaffirms the arguments that were made in my September 12, 2021, column, ‘Clear and present danger of climate change for Jamaica, insurers’. “Caribbean countries,” it declared, “are not prepared for the new challenges posed by climate change, compounded by uncertainty on future t ourism markets and a lack of fiscal space. The strategies that have worked in the past will not be enough in the future. Climate change threatens to intensify natural hazards and brings new sources of volatility though impacts on health, agriculture yields, and coastal landscapes. The post-COVID-19 world brings more uncertainty on prospects for tourism. Many countries have also depleted their fiscal space and coping capacity while dealing with past crises.
“These new challenges call for more consistent approaches to resilience, building on stronger institutions, robust analytics, and more transparent prioritisation. To boost resilience and better prepare for the shocks and stresses of the future, this report recommends that Caribbean governments focus on three principal areas:
• Increasing government efficiency by improving investment management and infrastructure maintenance, clarifying procurement rules for emergency situations, allocating budgets transparently, ensuring fiscal rules are robust, and layering risk financing strategies. (Finance Minister Clarke wrote about the island’s ‘multi-layered disaster risk financing strategy’ in his September 26, 2021 Sunday Gleaner article).
• Empowering households and the private sector by increasing both the coverage and adequacy of social protection, strengthening worker skills for resilience, improving access to finance, and facilitating access to risk information. (Minister Clarke spoke expansively about access to finance, including insurance, when he addressed the Jamaican segment of the Munich Re Foundation Conference last month).
• Reducing future physical risk by investing in critical infrastructure, better enforcing building codes and standards, systematically considering emerging and changing risks, and planning to build back better after shocks.”
According to the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, in its September 2020 report, the island “suffered the compounded effects of multiple disasters over the last three years: the devastating impacts of hurricanes Irma and Maria in September 2017, recurrent seismic activity in the southwest region, including a magnitude 6.4 earthquake on January 7, 2020, t he current COVID-19 pandemic; all underscored by a crushing debt crisis and a federally mandated austerity regime since 2016. Multiple natural disasters have exacerbated vulnerability and poverty, and public energy, telecommunications, water, health, and transportation systems have greatly deteriorated and become even more vulnerable, causing systematic (sic) failures in social safety nets”.
Despite these events, Puerto Rico is omitted from the islands that the World Bank’s 360° Resilience report discussed. Surely its Caribbean neighbours will learn from those experiences.
That omission aside, and for which the authors of the World Bank study offered no explanation, the report provides an explicit endorsement of this column’s mission.