Virtual Caribbean Safe School Initiative Pre-Ministerial Forum Scheduled for March 15 – 26, 2021

Barbados, February 17, 2021 (CDEMA) – The Virtual Caribbean Safe School Initiative (CSSI) Pre-Ministerial Forum has been organized through a collaborative effort between the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction – Regional Office for the Americas and the Caribbean (UNDRR ROAC), Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Office (UNESCO) in Latin America and the Caribbean, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNCEF) and the governments of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and St. Martin.

This year’s forum, titled Regional Review on School Safety in the context of Systemic Risk, will focus on reviewing of the experiences of the Education Sector’s COVID-19 response and recovery prior to and during the 2020 Hurricane Season, and will discuss the need for coordinating policies and actions for prevention and mitigation aiming to build education sector resilience.

The virtual format will comprise a series of 60-90-minute online sessions beginning Monday, March 15 through Friday, March 26, prefaced by and concluding with a high-level session involving Ministers of Education in the entire Caribbean region. The forum aims to support the action of School Safety focal points at Ministries of Education, while they will report the outcomes of each session to their Permanent Secretaries and Ministers of Education. The sessions aim to strengthen and establish partnerships with other sectors, as well as with other stakeholders and practitioners, to better understand the systemic nature of risk, and the ways to manage it.

Among the expected outcomes of the forum are recommendations for shaping the CSSI and its Road Map to be tabled at the Third Ministerial Forum on Safe Schools, which is scheduled to take place in early 2022. Additionally, the organizers intend to guarantee the link with the next regional and global Platforms for Disaster Risk Reduction, as well as in the CDEMA-organized CDM Conference, by identifying key CSSI messages to be brought forward.

For more information, please visit CSSI website, where you can also find the concept note of this event.