ABSTRACT
This paper highlights the development of the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID’s) Caribbean Disaster Mitigation Project (CDMP). The CDMP was developed in 1992 by the USAID Regional and Urban Housing Office and the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA). The development of the CDMP was influenced by several international and regional events. Primary among these were the declaration of the International Decade Disaster Reduction and the development of a global Prevention, Mitigation and Preparedness Strategy by the US OFDA. This paper examines the impact the International Disaster Mitigation conference of 1984 and the 1985 ‘Pan Caribbean Workshop on Design Mechanisms for Reducing Vulnerability to Natural Disasters’ held in Trinidad had on its development.
