The Hon. Minister of Infrastructure, Communications and Utilities, Mr. Curtis Richardson, the 15th High-Level Forum for Caribbean Ministers Responsible for Water entitled: From Strategy to Execution: Preparing the Caribbean for the Regional Strategy and Action Plan (RASP). The Regional Policy Event was held under the auspices of the Inter-American Development Bank in St.Kitts-Nevis at the St. Kitts Marriott from October 14 – 15 2019.
The Caribbean Wastewater Association (CWWA) and its partners successfully drafted a RSAP, after a series of regional stakeholder workshops, meetings and discussions to garner consensus for a common regional water agenda. The agenda focused on governance, evidence-based decision-making, water resources management, water service provision and capacity-building along with public sensitisation to prepare Caribbean nations for the looming effects of climate change. The forum will be the platform for Caribbean countries to share experiences and knowledge in an interactive way with the goal of building meaningful and substantial country collaboration.
The forum was one of the activities held as part of the larger 28th Annual CWWA Conference on the above date. The feature address, the Hon. Prime Minister St.Kitts-Nevis Dr. Timothy Harris, indicated that an urgent need had arisen to address water challenges “by identifying priorities for action at the highest political level, building on existing partnerships.”
He further said: “Regional governments welcome the heightened importance provided by UNESCO and CWWA in deploying their unique multi-disciplinary expertise – in science, culture, climate change, education, biodiversity resource preservation, knowledge management and information for decision-making – in addressing the multiplicity of challenges facing SIDS.”
Hon. Minister Curtis Richardson views the Conference as an excellent opportunity for networking and information sharing. He wishes to assure the people of Anguilla of his personal commitment to deliver water 24/7 and remains focused on seeing further improvements to the distribution network and storage capacity of the Water Corporation of Anguilla.
