NEMO Hosts National Disaster Preparedness Sessions in Belize City

Organizations that form the national disaster response framework are meeting in Belize City for a two-day session to strengthen the country’s disaster preparedness protocols. The sessions are being hosted by the National Emergency Management Organization (NEMO) under the Early Warning for All initiative. The sessions are geared towards looking at gaps that exist in Belize’s early warning system and developing interventions to address those gaps. NEMO’s National Emergency Coordinator Daniel Mendez explained that Early Warning for All is an initiative being implemented globally. He spoke on the implementation efforts going on in Belize. 

Daniel Mendez, National Emergency Coordinator, NEMO: “The purpose of this is really seeing how we can improve the early warning competent of our work in Belize. The ultimate aim is to ensure that globally every person has access to an early warning system by the year 2030 and we are in the process of implementing that project here in Belize. In terms of implementation, what we have done is as follows. Number one, we have done an early warning assessment gap which is in a draft form. So we have, through the support of the UNDRR, now have a better understanding of where we are, our capacities to provide early warning to our people. The second component is the development of an implementation plan, which is what we’re doing here today, looking at the gaps and seeing how we can take action as a society in order for us to be able to bridge those gaps and order for us to be able to ensure that people are able to receive some sort of early warning when we’re looking at different hazards”

Mendez says that the initiative has for thematic pillar that stakeholders will be looking at for the duration of the sessions. 

Daniel Mendez, National Emergency Coordinator, NEMO: “It’s two days. It’s two days of work. It’s not necessarily training. It’s looking at the gaps and looking at how we can create a plan together in order for us to be able to achieve the goals of the initiative. And so there are four pillars to this that we are addressing. So number one is looking at improving disaster knowledge and this is working with everyone, including the media, to ensure that we are able to teach and share with our people what the hazards that exist are and really help people in giving them information on disasters. The second one is the detection and observation, which is looking at strengthening our ability to detect and  detect hazards before they become an issue. So this is working with others not only NEMO, but the Met Service, Hydrology Service, Fire Department, and so on. The third is looking at the governance piece, where we look at improving the governance. And then the pillar is looking at the strengthening of our preparedness and response capability. So  we’ll be looking at all of those pillars over the next two days.”

The end goal of the Early Warning for All initiative is to have early warning systems set up globally by 2030.