The United States Government through its Agency for International Development (USAID) signed a memorandum of understanding on Wednesday with The Bahamas Government at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to donate an additional $500,000 to the hurricane rebuilding effort in Grand Bahama.
Following the devastation experienced during hurricanes Frances and Jeanne last year, USAID donated $500,000, which officials called much needed emergency assistance.
According to Karen Turner, mission director for USAID Jamaica-Caribbean Regional Programme, the additional funding will aid in ongoing hurricane rebuilding in West End, Grand Bahama.
“Here in The Bahamas USAID has partnered with the Government of The Bahamas to design a programme that will support housing construction and community revitalization in West End,” Mrs. Turner said. “However, this programme will not merely repair and rebuild homes to pre-hurricane or better conditions.
“This programme also will help empower vulnerable communities in The Bahamas to be better prepared for and more resilient to future natural disasters. An educational campaign will distribute training materials about hurricane resistant techniques to homeowners in underserved communities.”
Mrs. Turner said that residents will also be trained in disaster awareness because preparedness, and not just disaster response and relief, is essential to the economic sustainability of The Bahamas.
“This programme will also help generate employment for people who lost their livelihood as a result of last year’s hurricanes. The construction and other assistance under this programme will be channeled through local entities so that Bahamians can help other Bahamians build back better.”
According to John Rood, US Ambassador to The Bahamas, West End, Grand Bahama is a good example of what happens to an island if prosperity misses it, but tragedies like hurricanes do not.
“This is a project that we have been working on since September when I visited West End right after the storm,” Ambassador Rood said. “I can still remember the shock that I felt as I rode through West End. The power poles were down, and houses in some cases were just a pile of rubble. In other cases the concrete walls were there, but the roofs were not. It was just awful.
“I communicated to Washington what I saw and we all agreed that it was so important to be a good neighbour to The Bahamas and reach out and help in any way that we could.”
Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs Vincent Peet also pointed to the importance of the funds.
“The signing of this Memorandum of Understanding is, therefore, very timely, and the assistance provided therein would go a long way in assisting The Bahamas in implementing its disaster management and mitigation programmes,” Minister Peet said.
“The signing today is indicative of the strong, deep, and abiding relationship that exists between our two countries. Indeed, this document reaffirms the common interests, mutual concerns, and the spirit of cooperation that we have shared and will continue to share in the years to come.”
USAID is an independent US Government Agency that provides economic, developmental, and humanitarian assistance around the world in support of the foreign policy goals of the United States.
There are several USAID field offices in the Caribbean, including missions in Haiti, Guyana, the Dominican Republic, and Jamaica. The Jamaican Mission also manages a Caribbean Regional Programme through a satellite office in Barbados.
After the devastation of the 2004 hurricane season, the Jamaican Mission responded with a special hurricane recovery programme for islands affected by the active season including Grenada, Tobago, and The Bahamas.
In October 2004, the US Congress approved $100 million of supplemental funding for hurricane recovery efforts in the Caribbean of which $40 million was allocated to Grenada and $2 million for assistance elsewhere in the Caribbean region.
The additional $500,000 given to The Bahamas was derived from that sum for work in West End, Grand Bahama, an area devastated by last year’s devastating hurricanes.
By: Perez Clarke, The Bahama Journal
