Alicia Herbert hadn’t yet served a full month as Britain’s new top diplomat here when Hurricane Melissa slammed into Jamaica’s south-western coast on October 28, 2025.

The Category 5 storm took lives, displaced at least 90,000 people, destroyed homes and infrastructure, and ravaged the agriculture sector, leaving physical damage of US$8.8 billion, according to the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank. That was equivalent to 41 per cent of the country’s 2024 gross domestic product, making Melissa the costliest hurricane in Jamaica’s recorded history.

The hurricane’s onslaught was a sharp contrast to the warm welcome Herbert received from Jamaicans, but the British high commissioner, driven by her Government’s commitment to Jamaica, plus her own ancestral connection to the Caribbean — given that she was born in Trinidad and Tobago — set to work helping the hurricane-battered island recover.

“Overall, I’ve received an absolutely exceptionally warm welcome. It is actually heartening. Within a month of arriving, Hurricane Melissa paid us a visit and so, in a sense, you would find that a lot of what I did in my first three or four months was lead the United Kingdom’s response to Hurricane Melissa. Given the way in which we were able to interact with stakeholders, it has meant that we were able to mount a credible response to the impact of Melissa,” Herbert told reporters and editors at this week’s
Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange.

That response, the diplomat added, involves helping to ensure recovery from natural disasters is sustainable

“What I mean by that is one, where there is a higher level of preparedness in the event of further climate emergencies, given the vulnerabilities of the region. We plan to give support to Jamaica as well to build back in a way that is sustainable — and that is a major project over the course of the next four years,” Herbert said.

“We are going to stand side by side with Jamaica on that and, indeed, if there is another crisis Jamaica will be in a position to draw on resources in order to support that effort. The heart of what we want to do over the next four years is to work alongside to build an even more sustainable economy in terms of building back better.”

Also on her action list is strengthening the partnership between Kingston and London in the area of security and violence reduction.

“My previous role was the gender ambassador for the British Government. I have done a lot of work in that area over the years, and that continues to be a priority for the British Government — looking into the situation of gender equality and issues on gender-based violence. What we hope to do is work very closely with a range of Jamaican stakeholders to tackle gender-based violence,” the high commissioner explained.

“In the spirit of exchange, I really want to stress that, because we have got a challenge in the UK as well around gender-based violence, and we have clear targets about wanting to halve the prevalence of violence against women and girls over the course of the next 10 years. I am coming in a spirit of partnership. Since the start of the year we have been talking to a range of different organisations, academics, and specialists in the field, and also talking to the Government about it as well.

“We are beginning to talk to private sector and individual experts just to get a sense of what the issues are and the state of the data, and hopefully we will be able to forge a plan and a way forward and we will work on this together,” Herbert shared.

The high commissioner acknowledged the reduction Jamaica has been seeing in murders and most other serious crimes. She said that while the UK Government has contributed to the strengthening of national security systems in Jamaica over many decades, it would be presumptuous to claim any credit for the successes being realised in the fight against crime.

Between January 1 and February 21 this year Jamaica recorded 80 murders, which represents a 23.8 per cent reduction compared to the same period last year when the figure stood at 105.

“I wouldn’t want to sit here and claim any percentage of that for the British Government. What I would like to stress is, this is an area that is important for this country and this region, and we are going to continue to support in ways we think we are best placed to do,” Herbert said.

“Of course, we are not the only country working in this area. What we tend to do is provide technical assistance and work behind the scenes in support of Jamaican stakeholders. I would not be able to claim any percentage. Who is on the frontline of dealing with issues of violence in this country? It is really the Jamaican police, the Jamaica Defence Force, and the other bodies,” she said.