NASSAU, The Bahamas – Technical officers from the Department of Gender and Family Affairs, Ministry of Social Services and Urban Development, returned to New Providence over the November 29 weekend after participating in a United Nations Symposium on 'Mainstreaming Gender in Water Resources Management for Disaster Risk Reduction in the Caribbean.'

The officers were Torree Musgrove and Allicia Rolle, who serve as Research and Conventions Specialists within the Department of Gender and Family Affairs.

Held November 26-27 in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, the symposium featured a Climate Change Adaptation component, and was hosted by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), together with the CARICOM Secretariat, and the sub-regional Headquarters for the Caribbean of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

The symposium’s intent was to enhance the capacity of government officials, civil society representatives and community leaders to promote gender mainstreaming in the areas of water resources management and disaster risk reduction. It also supported updating regional gender policy to include resilience elements, and to address what organizers say is an oversight on behalf of policymakers to engage in gender-responsive disaster planning and implementation that often results in limited consideration to the specific needs of women in early-warning mechanisms, protective facilities and infrastructure for shelters, relief distribution and recovery programmes.

Minister of Social Services and Urban Development, the Hon. Frankie A. Campbell, said the duo’s participation in the symposium was in line with his Ministry’s continued efforts towards building greater intellectual and institutional capacity within the Ministry, its departments and divisions at the national, regional and international levels.

“I am always talking about our efforts towards improving and building capacity, through training at the national, regional and international levels in order to ensure that we are better able to respond to the needs of, and cater to, our clients,” Minister Campbell said.

“Climate Change and its negative impacts and/or effects, is something that regional Small-Island Developing States (SIDS) such as The Bahamas, have to pay careful attention to as we are the most vulnerable to all of this climate change, even though we are the least culpable in terms of causing the adverse affects with regards to our carbon footprint, our carbon emissions, which -- if the entire Caribbean came together and added up all of our emissions, it would not be one per cent of [that of] the Developed Nations,” Minister Campbell added.