The Office of Disaster Preparedness and Management (ODPM) is not merely about receiving emergency calls from those adversely affected by floods, touring the areas under water and delivering hampers, mattresses and shelter material to them until normalcy returns to life or our social services take over.

So said Col George Robinson, the ODPM’s chief executive officer and a formidable support team when the Chamber met with them recently.

He took great pains to point out that while the ODPM is not first responders, is not responsible for going house to house to nail roofs or cut trees or for cleaning drains and watercourses, its staff will seek out assistance for unfortunate victims.

The ODPM is equipped to do this 24 hours a day, seven days a week at its Tacarigua offices, which are configured to accommodate a command centre for any type of national crisis.

What then is the true role of the ODPM?

It is responsible for Disaster Risk Reduction and Management, management of responses to emergencies by co-ordinating the first responder agencies, for example, the Regional Corporations.

It works with these agencies on an ongoing basis, contacts them every morning, audits their responses in the event there are gaps in them and does whatever is necessary to improve the response capability.

The ODPM reports to an Inter-Ministerial Cabinet Committee and is responsible for critical infrastructure protection, public education and community outreach activities, prevention and mitigation initiatives in order to improve on relief and response.

Cabinet has conferred on it the authority to call upon the Defence Force for support of its role.

Col Robinson hastened to point out that the ODPM is not just another layer of bureaucracy and with a public sector approach in the discharge of these responsibilities and he expects that next year, appropriate legislation will be enacted to paint a much clearer picture.

The ODPM seeks to work with the private sector for the procurement of advocacy and awareness, social investment and philanthropy, core business partnerships, techno-legal regimes, and sustainable development, in order to satisfactorily play this role.

Advocacy and awareness would be raised via partnerships with the private sector and other stakeholders adopting a leadership role in championing, advocating and contributing to the resolution of different issues.

It will foster partnerships with Government and regulatory bodies and participate in legitimate dialogue and collective action with stakeholders from diverse sections of the economy.

It would seek to define, assign and implement clear and coherent institutional roles, train, equip and achieve proficiency for effective response capacity for high-risk communities, assess institutional needs, develop and implement programmes to assist key organisations with sustainability, issues and measures.

The partnerships are to improve disaster consciousness of the general population, access to accurate information, basic communication, energy and water systems for high-risk communities by facilitating appropriate technology alternatives, and ensuring that existing and upcoming industrial assets and infrastructure are disaster resistant.

The ODPM will ensure proper identification of industrial establishments considering hazard parameters, make industrial processes and procedures inherently safe and ensure that transportation, storage, handling and usage of chemicals and other hazardous raw materials do not pose a threat to the nearby areas and the environment.

With respect to what the ODPM sees as the role of the private sector in terms of social investment and philanthropy partnerships, they are intended to provide financial support and volunteers with expertise.

They will make in kind contributions and product donations.

In the event of an emergency they will be expected to donate supplies of non-perishable food, water, personal care items, construction material, vehicles and air time from telecommunications providers.

The ODPM is desirous of entering into agreements with these providers and private sector organisations by means of MOUs.

The Chamber is happy to report that it signed such an MOU jointly with the ODPM and the regional body Caribbean Central American Action (CCAA) in September 2007.

Such partnerships will facilitate the development, onsite and offsite, of disaster management plans by industries and in association with Regional Corporations, conduct drills at regular intervals to determine the efficacy of these plans, prepare inventories of corporate resources and sharing them with the appropriate authorities.

The ODPM hopes that private sector agencies will also implement large-scale awareness generation initiatives, building the knowledge, skills and attitudes of the population for a safer community, establish linkages between private sector and the community and develop and implement appropriate risk transfer mechanisms.

They will secure active participation of corporate Trinidad and Tobago in risk mapping the area hosting the particular industry, implement training and capacity building exercises for the community in its hazard preparedness activities and create an industry led voluntary force for search-and-rescue and for first aid.

The ultimate vision of the ODPM for these partnerships is to move away from the relief-centric

approach to disaster risk management, towards a more proactive assault on vulnerabilities through risk management measures and capacity building of industry personnel, and to mainstream private sector participation in disaster risk management. In relation to flooding, the ODPM, envisages a role for the private sector in its insistence upon adherence to regulations and enforcement by the Ministry of Planning and Development. This persistence by the private sector must also include the implementation of strict sanitation codes, social responsibility for watercourses that are near to operations and active participation in the process of prevention and mitigation. In the short term, the expectations of the ODPM are that the private sector will contribute to mainstreaming disaster risk reduction, establish a more beneficial and meaningful relationship with that Office, improve logistic arrangements for disaster management, focus on critical infrastructure protection, strengthen community-based disaster risk management and community awareness campaigns/public programmes and install multi-hazard early warning systems. If there is one public sector organisation that is satisfied with its allocation in the national budget, it is the ODPM, and the Chamber is reminded of the words of the former Director of the erstwhile National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Col Dave Williams: ’The more money spent in prevention, results in less money to prepare for hazards when they come.’ In our opinion, this philosophy underpins the very mission of the ODPM and its role in society. Regrettably, our national psyche has been one of procrastination, casualism, lethargy and consolation that ’God is a Trini’. Hopefully, the ODPM, the private sector and all other stakeholders will change that!