Publication: The Building Regulation for Resilience Program - Resilient Building Regulation in the Caribbean: 360° Resilience Background Paper
Loading...
Date
2021-10-01
ISSN
Published
2021-10-01
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
The Caribbean region’s exposure to natural disaster and climate events combined with population growth and urban development concentrated in highly risk prone Low Elevation Coastal Zones, leaves homes, people, and significant infrastructure assets highly vulnerable to disaster and climate impacts. Compounding this vulnerability is the prevalence of informal building and construction practices in the region. While many countries in the Caribbean have building codes in place, there remains a pervasive gap in the effective application of risk informed land use and adequate implementation and enforcement of building regulations (including building codes), all of which contributes to rising rates of informal, especially among poorer populations. Some of key contributing factors are under resourced regulators, lack of regulatory cooperation among relevant agencies, a lack of public awareness on the significant of compliance with building regulation, inadequate quality infrastructure services (e.g. testing and product certification) and insufficient political support for advancing this agenda. This confluence of factors often results in devastating disaster losses, as have been seen in countries like Dominica and the Bahamas in recent years. In Dominica, the low uptake of improved construction practices, weak enforcement of building codes, and the use of poor-quality construction materials left 90% of the country’s housing stock either partially damaged or destroyed in the aftermath of Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017. The damage amounted to US$353 million to the housing sector alone with Hurricane Maria estimated to have cost Dominica 225% of its GDP. The economic and human toll of disasters for the Caribbean is substantial. For some countries the damage exceeds the size of the economy, leaving huge reconstruction needs that can take years to be fully met. Effective building regulations ensure that builders and governments apply safe standards for the siting and construction of buildings so that they can withstand these events, protecting assets, their inhabitants and ultimately economic development. Recent disaster events in the Caribbean serve as a reminder of the urgent need to strengthen building regulation in the Caribbean as a means to reduce the vulnerability of the housing and building stock while increasing human and economic resilience. This note will broadly describe the current status of building regulation in the Caribbean, highlighting the biggest challenges to the implementation and enforcement of building codes, as well as proposing some solutions to overcome them.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Benavidez, Melody Joy. 2021. The Building Regulation for Resilience Program - Resilient Building Regulation in the Caribbean: 360° Resilience Background Paper. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36414 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Building Regulation for Resilience(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-12-09)The global toll of human suffering and material loss due to disasters has led to growing public concern and expanded institutional response in the form of disaster relief and recovery assistance from individuals, governments, and intergovernmental organizations. Initial humanitarian concern has primarily been focused on dealing with the consequences of disasters. However, we must begin to address the causes of these events while ensuring the implementation of policies to reduce disaster risks or losses. Low- and middle-income countries will experience a doubling of their building stocks in the next 15- 20 years, and it is crucial to assure that this new construction does not recreate and expand the disaster vulnerability of the present. Priority must be placed on the production of safe and resilient cities, communities, and homes. While safer, code-compliant construction may add to initial construction costs, these investments can be balanced against the reduced loss of life and property in future disasters. The agenda provides the international community with an opportunity to leverage regulatory governance as a powerful means to shift the focus from post-disaster relief and response to proactive population protection, disaster prevention, and sustainable and resilient urban development.Publication Building Resilience : Integrating Climate and Disaster Risk into Development(Washington, DC, 2013-11)This report presents the World Bank Group's experience in climate and disaster resilient development and contends that it is essential to eliminate extreme poverty and achieve shared prosperity by 2030. The report argues for closer collaboration between the climate resilience and disaster risk management communities through the incorporation of climate and disaster resilience into broader development processes. Selected case studies are used to illustrate promising approaches, lessons learned, and remaining challenges all in contribution to the loss and damage discussions under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The introduction provides an overview of the UNFCCC and also introduces key concepts and definitions relevant to climate and disaster resilient development. Section two describes the impacts of globally increasing weather-related disasters in recent decades. Section three summarizes how the World Bank Group's goals to end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity are expected to be affected by rising disaster losses in a changing climate. Section four discusses the issue of attribution in weather-related disasters, and the additional start-up costs involved in climate and disaster resilient development. Section five builds upon the processes and instruments developed by the climate resilience and the disaster risk management communities of practice to provide some early lessons learned in this increasingly merging field. Section six highlights case studies and emerging good practices in climate and disaster resilient development. Section seven concludes the report, summarizing key lessons learned and identifying potential gaps and avenues for future work.Publication Caribbean and Central American Partnership for Catastrophe Risk Insurance : Pooling Risk to Safeguard against Catastrophes Generated by Natural Events(Washington, DC, 2014-04)Countries in the Caribbean and Central America are highly vulnerable to the adverse effects associated with earthquakes, tropical cyclones, and other major hydro-meteorological events such as excessive rainfall. Aftermath of disasters typically place significant strain on the fiscal systems of affected countries. Consequently, ministers of the Central American integration system (SICA) and Caribbean community (CARICOM) countries have expressed a strong intention to collectively manage the disaster risk. By understanding the loss potential of disasters caused by natural events and the extent of public intervention in recovery and reconstruction efforts, governments can ascertain their respective contingent liabilities. Sovereign disaster risk financing and insurance can also safeguard against sudden macroeconomic shocks that negatively impact fiscal performance, and in turn, economic development. Caribbean and Central American governments are constrained in their ability to access quick liquidity to absorb fiscal shocks associated with natural hazard impacts because they have limited ability to create contingency funds, and limited capacity for external borrowing. The World Bank in partnership with the United States department of treasury assessed various options, which guided Ministers of Finance of Central America, Panama, and the Dominican Republic (COSEFIN) to identify the Caribbean catastrophe risk insurance facility (CCRIF) as the best option. The CCRIF provides cost-effective and fast-disbursing liquidity, and is an efficient way to finance a liquidity gap arising in the immediate aftermath of disaster.Publication Building Morocco's Resilience : Inputs for an Integrated Risk Management Strategy(Washington, DC, 2014-01-30)Top decision makers and governments worldwide are witnessing an accelerating number of major shocks-global financial crises, hyper-volatility in commodity prices, devastating natural disasters, intercontinental pandemics as well as the changing nature of terrorism threats. These shocks, which inflict human suffering and major social, economic and political disruption, are fundamentally changing how governments view the importance of good risk management and the need to strengthen national resilience. As a consequence, risk management has evolved from being a technical issue to a strategic consideration. This report is input for the government of Morocco's development of an integrated risk management strategy. Developing and adopting a national strategy for integrated risk management (IRM) will make Morocco not only better prepared to avoid future crises, and more reactive and resilient if and when they occur, but also helps the government make more informed decisions on resource allocation and prioritization.Publication Acting Today for Tomorrow(Washington, DC, 2012)Pacific island countries continue to be among the most vulnerable in the world: they combine high exposure to frequent and damaging natural hazards with low capacity to manage the resulting risks. Their vulnerability is exacerbated by poorly planned socioeconomic development, which has increased exposure and disaster losses, and by climate change, which has increased the magnitude of cyclones, droughts, and flooding. Currently, inefficient management of risks negates development gains and incurs large costs for national and local governments. Progress in reducing vulnerability has been retarded in part because of fundamental problems with coordination and cooperation among relevant actors at all levels. 'acting today for tomorrow' provides case studies, data, and analysis from the Pacific region to make a case for climate-and disaster-resilient development as being the most appropriate way to address the above challenges. It outlines what the consequences are of not acting today to reduce risk, what important lessons have emerged from the last decade, and what must be done to move toward resilient development in Pacific island countries. The document is intended for an audience of practitioners and policymakers at all levels across all relevant sectors. Its analysis and recommendations are meant to inform disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA) planning across a range of institutions. Over the last decade, some important lessons have emerged about what works, and what does not work, to reduce vulnerability. It is clear now that project-based DRR and CCA initiatives with relatively short time frames encourage fragmented efforts, inhibit carryover across initiatives, and ultimately do little to reduce underlying vulnerability in a lasting way. To achieve robust and effective political authority, leadership, and accountability for more resilient development, governments should anchor coordination of DRR and CCA in a high level central ministry/body both at national and regional levels and ensure that leaders are knowledgeable about disaster and climate risk management.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.Publication The Journey Ahead(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-31)The Journey Ahead: Supporting Successful Migration in Europe and Central Asia provides an in-depth analysis of international migration in Europe and Central Asia (ECA) and the implications for policy making. By identifying challenges and opportunities associated with migration in the region, it aims to inform a more nuanced, evidencebased debate on the costs and benefits of cross-border mobility. Using data-driven insights and new analysis, the report shows that migration has been an engine of prosperity and has helped address some of ECA’s demographic and socioeconomic disparities. Yet, migration’s full economic potential remains untapped. The report identifies multiple barriers keeping migration from achieving its full potential. Crucially, it argues that policies in both origin and destination countries can help maximize the development impacts of migration and effectively manage the economic, social, and political costs. Drawing from a wide range of literature, country experiences, and novel analysis, The Journey Ahead presents actionable policy options to enhance the benefits of migration for destination and origin countries and migrants themselves. Some measures can be taken unilaterally by countries, whereas others require close bilateral or regional coordination. The recommendations are tailored to different types of migration— forced displacement as well as high-skilled and low-skilled economic migration—and from the perspectives of both sending and receiving countries. This report serves as a comprehensive resource for governments, development partners, and other stakeholders throughout Europe and Central Asia, where the richness and diversity of migration experiences provide valuable insights for policy makers in other regions of the world.Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.Publication Argentina Country Climate and Development Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.Publication Lebanon Economic Monitor, Fall 2022(Washington, DC, 2022-11)The economy continues to contract, albeit at a somewhat slower pace. Public finances improved in 2021, but only because spending collapsed faster than revenue generation. Testament to the continued atrophy of Lebanon’s economy, the Lebanese Pound continues to depreciate sharply. The sharp deterioration in the currency continues to drive surging inflation, in triple digits since July 2020, impacting the poor and vulnerable the most. An unprecedented institutional vacuum will likely further delay any agreement on crisis resolution and much needed reforms; this includes prior actions as part of the April 2022 International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff-level agreement (SLA). Divergent views among key stakeholders on how to distribute the financial losses remains the main bottleneck for reaching an agreement on a comprehensive reform agenda. Lebanon needs to urgently adopt a domestic, equitable, and comprehensive solution that is predicated on: (i) addressing upfront the balance sheet impairments, (ii) restoring liquidity, and (iii) adhering to sound global practices of bail-in solutions based on a hierarchy of creditors (starting with banks’ shareholders) that protects small depositors.