CDERA Website has a New Look
www.cdera.org

The new-look CDERA Web Site was officially launched on Friday, April 19, 2002 by Mr. Jeremy Collymore, Coordinator of CDERA. The brief ceremony was held to coincide with the 7th Meeting of the Information and Communication Systems Advisory Committee (one of the standing committees of the CDERA Board of Directors) convened at the CDERA Coordinating Unit (CDERA/CU) in Barbados.

During his address Mr. Collymore indicated that the services being offered by CDERA through the website is an essential part of CDERA’s efforts to be the primary disaster management information broker in the region. He further indicated that this intervention is refocusing how disaster management information is being disseminated in the Caribbean region using the emerging technology.

Since the CDERA website was launched in 1996, it has been redesigned twice, however over the last year, the CDERA/CU has noted that the website should not merely provide a public information resource for Disaster Management in the region but should provide some interaction with our clients.

The new design is much more user friendly and offers a wide range of static and interactive disaster services, which includes disaster management information, education products and resources for disaster management activities.

With the expansion of our domain services, this website will soon host a Discussion Forum, databases on-line and a Virtual Disaster Library. The Virtual Disaster Library will feature the catalog of documents from the CDERA Documentation Center and also full some text documents published by the CDERA/CU. In the meantime we have posted the top ten (10) of our most requested documents on-line.

The CDERA/CU is committed to ensuring that the website meets the information needs of the CDERA community, partners, stakeholders and our other users. Indeed, as we move towards Comprehensive Disaster Management (CDM), the CDERA Website will be the major medium for the provision of the disaster information clearinghouse services.

CDERA is the acronym for the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency. It is a regional inter- governmental agency established in September 1991 by an Agreement of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to be responsible for disaster management in the Caribbean region. There are presently sixteen (16) Participating States within CDERA’s membership.