Cabinet gives approval to Jamica's natural disaster risk financing policy

The Jamaican cabinet has approved the development of a national natural disaster risk-financing policy.

"The policy will target both pre-disaster, meaning mitigation, resilience measures, and post-disaster risk transfer measures and how to plan for and better finance damage and losses so that natural disasters don't derail us from our objectives," said Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke at a forum held at the The Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in New Kingston.

He said the World Bank will be providing technical assistance and the Inter-American Development Bank will provide grant funding for the development of the policy.

The finance minister said the Government would be seeking to involve the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to ensure that the strategies that will be in the policy are in line with debt and growth objectives.

He added that the initial policy preparation and analysis is scheduled to happen in January 2019 for public consultation and the publication of a Green Paper by March the said year.

Dr Clarke further added that the aim of the Government is to have a strategy in place before the current standby facility provided by the IMF expires in October 2019.