 |
||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
PROTECTING HOMES AND HUMAN LIVESThe Greater Caribbean This Week Vincent Vire Over the last two decades, the Greater Caribbean Region has experienced a dramatic upsurge in the frequency of natural hazards, such as earthquakes, hurricanes and flooding. These events have caused significant social and economic disruption and environmental damage, destroying years of development efforts and investments, and shifting development priorities away from long-term goals in order to meet immediate needs of reconstruction and rehabilitation. Many disasters are inevitable but their damage can be reduced significantly. It is indeed recognised that a large percentage of losses results from inadequate design and siting of housing and other infrastructures. With proper-engineered construction much of the risk can be reduced. |
||||
Recognising the need for each country susceptible to disasters to have appropriate construction standards, the Association of Caribbean States (ACS), with financial assistance from the Government of Italy, through its Trust Fund managed by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and from STIRANA (Foundation for Disaster Preparedness of the Netherlands Antilles), has embarked on a project aimed at “Updating Building Codes of the Greater Caribbean for Winds and Earthquakes” and thereby reducing the vulnerability to natural disasters. This initiative is consistent with the goal of the ACS Special Committee on Natural Disasters to reduce risks and losses caused by natural disasters in ACS Members Countries. The objective of the first phase of the project was to produce and disseminate CD-ROMs containing state-of-the-art model codes for earthquakes and wind loads as well as recommendations for the updating of existing codes, so that ACS Member Countries be able to endow themselves with new appropriate codes or improve the existing ones, in order to develop better construction practices and techniques for the building of safe and reliable buildings. The CD-ROM was launched in August 2003 and disseminated widely to building professionals and policy makers in the ACS; the material is also available on the ACS Website (www.acs-aec.org). The ACS is now working in collaboration with several organisations in the region on the second phase of the project (sensitisation phase) aimed at promoting the development, maintenance and application of appropriate construction standards and codes to enhance significantly the resilience of buildings to the effects of natural hazards. This second phase covers therefore important aspects related to enforcement and inspection mechanisms, incentives and training. Enforcement comes from the political will to fully implement adequate building codes and standards. Combined with inspection mechanisms it has the strongest effect on strengthening building practices and represents therefore a crucial step towards reducing vulnerability. To reinforce these building regulations, governments should work with private-sector financial and insurance companies to encourage the development of financial incentives, such as premium reductions or reduced-rate loans, for properly constructed buildings using established standards and regulations. Finally, with the adoption of state-of-the-art building codes throughout the region, building inspectors, designers, engineers, builders and construction workers have to be trained on the new codes. Control measures for the training and qualification of those actors should also be put in place. It is hoped that
the implementation of the second phase of the project would lead to
safer and more economical design of buildings, with a substantial
reduction in human and property losses from natural disasters affecting
the region.
|
|
|
Association of Caribbean States ©
2007 |