WITH the Disaster Vulnerability Reduction Project (DVRP) ending in May 2024, Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF) is looking to provide additional support under the initiative, where necessary.

“In terms of the National Risk Information Platform (NRIP), initially it was going to be primarily looking at having most of the data local. We have been able to identify additional resources, and what that will allow us to do is to create a hybrid platform that allows for both local storage and still have the cloud-enabling capacity,” said DVRP project manager at JSIF Dane McLean, during a recent Jamaica Information Service (JIS) Think Tank.

The NRIP is among the projects being implemented under the DVRP, which commenced in 2016 with US$30-million financing from the World Bank. It will allow all risk data to be located and updated on a centralised platform that is available to government agencies and the public.

“So that’s another significant investment that will be plugged into the NRIP and, as indicated, should be online certainly by May next year,” McLean added.

The project manager said further that the Earthquake Unit will also benefit from additional investment.

“We have some equipment coming in to further boost the capacity of that unit. Just over another $60 million is being spent to bring in additional equipment to support the unit in that regard,” he said. These include several specialised seismic research equipment to enhance the unit’s capacity.

Meanwhile, the Bureau of Standards Jamaica (BSJ), another beneficiary under the project, is also expected to receive additional support to aid in the training of more stakeholders in relation to the updated building codes.