Emergency Communications Systems successfully tested across the Region, says CDEMA

#Bridgetown, Barbados, February 18, 2020 (CDEMA): The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) conducted its annual ‘Exercise Region Rap’ with its Participating States and Regional Response Mechanism (RRM) partners on Tuesday February 18, 2020.

The Exercise was dubbed a success with 14 Participating States and 16 regional and international partners taking part, including development partners, CARICOM institutions and UN Agencies. In an effort to integrate youth participation and promote their involvement in Comprehensive Disaster Management (CDM), the exercise was executed with the support of student volunteers from the Queens College in Barbados.

Exercise Region Rap is a Regional Telecommunications exercise conducted annually by the CDEMA Coordinating Unit (CU) to test communications procedures, plans and networks of National Disaster Organizations (NDOs) across the CDEMA Participating States and with RRM partners. The exercise is designed to provide a platform for advancing the Region’s telecommunications arrangements.

“Annually, CDEMA undertakes a series of exercises aimed at sharpening our response and coordination capabilities. Exercise Region Rap focuses on emergency telecommunications. The success of today’s exercise is a testament to the joint efforts with our partners in ensuring emergency telecommunications capabilities are tested across the CDEMA system. Today’s exercise demonstrates our commitment to strengthening emergency telecommunications systems at both national and regional levels”, said Ronald Jackson, Executive Director, CDEMA.

The Exercise focuses on establishing communications with Participating States and RRM Partners via e-mail, land-line, satellite phone, Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN), HF-VHF radio, WhatsApp chat, Google document, social media (Facebook and Twitter) and zoom meeting link. These are the forms of communications utilized during the operations of the Regional Coordination Center (RCC). This exercise aims to confirm connectivity among the RRM partners via the various available mediums, which includes connectivity between the CDEMA sub-regional focal points and their sub-regional states and the wider CDEMA system.

Exercise Region RAP 2020 was made possible through the Targeted Support to CDEMA initiative funded by the Government of Canada.