PRESS RELEASE – THE OECS Commission and UNICEF on Thursday jointly hosted a two-day capacity building workshop on National Cash Transfer Programmes for Emergencies. Held from September 27 to 28 at the Coco Palm Resort in Saint Lucia, it was designed to protect the most vulnerable after emergencies.
In light of the on-going rebuilding efforts post Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, the workshop seeks to provide social services and national emergency offices across Member States with the essential information and tools to enhance their social protection systems following an external shock.
The National Cash Transfer Programme for Emergencies workshop pursued multiple objectives: To increase knowledge and exposure of available practical tools to make social protection programmes more shock responsive in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) of the Eastern Caribbean with a focus on the most vulnerable families and children; To learn from the experiences of the Joint Emergency Cash Transfers (JECT) in Dominica and the British Virgin Islands; To build capacity of SIDS to roll out cash based interventions building on national public assistance programmes that target most vulnerable families and children; and To enhance knowledge to implement Communication for Development (C4D) techniques for cash based interventions before, during and after an emergency, to ensure cash based interventions are successful during implementation.
The workshop brought together experts in the area of post-disaster management from the OECS Commission, UNICEF, Social Welfare Departments and Disaster Management Offices of OECS Member States.