JAMAICA is one of three countries participating in a US$35.7-million project designed to strengthen resilience of urban areas through Ecosystem-Based Adaptation (EBA).
The project, entitled ‘Building climate resilience of urban systems through EBA in Latin America and the Caribbean’, also includes Mexico and El Salvador.
Funding in part for the project has been provided by the Jamaica Social Investment Fund; the Inter-American Development Bank San Salvador; and the Municipal Water and Sanitation Commission of Xalapa in Mexico.
Principal director of the Climate Change Division in the Economic Growth and Job Creation Ministry, Una May Gordon, said the project in the Jamaican context will target the community of Greenwich Town in Kingston, as well as other areas.
“We will try to reduce the concrete footprint of many schools along that corridor. We will be planting some fruit trees (to) also spur some liveliness along there. We will also be doing some farming so communities will be engaged,” she said.
Gordon was speaking at the inaugural staging of the Caribbean Climate Innovation Summit and Demo Day at the Knutsford Court Hotel in New Kingston on November 2.
The countries selected under the project were chosen due to several socio-economic issues common to them.