Melissa Skerrit to host Disaster Resilience and Financing Symposium, aims to discuss climate change

Roseau, Dominica: Melissa Skerrit, Minister of Housing, Land & Urban Development is all set to host the Disaster Resilience and Financing Symposium for the Housing Sector on 13th and 14th March 2024. This symposium is being conducted in collaboration with the World Bank to address problems regarding climate change.

Melissa Skerrit took to her social media account and extended an invitation to the stakeholders, contractors, engineers, architects, financial institutions, builders and others to attend the seminar. “The Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, in collaboration with the World Bank invites stakeholders like contractors, engineers, architects, financial institutions, builders and others as we exchange ideas to build back better in our ardent efforts to combat climate change,” noted Melissa Skerrit.

The symposium is being conducted with a motive to exchange ideas and information in order to take some crucial measures to combat the problems faced by the island nation during climate change. They are hoping to bridge physical and financial solutions to improve disaster resilience.

The symposium will be attended by Housing and Physical Planning agencies, Financial Institutions, builders, engineers, architects, and academia who will share their opinions and views to find out the measures to deal with the challenges of climate change.

The primary objectives of the Disaster Resilience and Financing Symposium for the Housing Sector include:

• The attendees will develop a roadmap of priorities for building resilience in the housing sector. • The attendees will focus on identifying financial opportunities which can contribute to supporting the resilience roadmap. • The attendees will also shed light on the knowledge gained through the implementation of housing reconstruction and resilience projects.

The Government of Dominica is also on a mission to construct sustainable climate-resilient homes, ensuring the well-being and safety of its citizens to tackle environmental challenges.

Following the destruction caused by Hurricane Maria, the government shared their vision of constructing and distributing 5000 climate-resilient homes to the families affected by natural disasters so that they do not have to go through the same problem they did in the year 2017.

Since then, the administration has distributed over 1500 homes to several residents. Recently, the authorities handed over the keys to 40 families which shed light on the government’s unwavering commitment and dedication towards fulfilling their promise of building Dominica, the first climate-resilient nation.