Jeremy Collymore, Advisor for Disaster Resilience.
ANGUILLA--Advisor for Disaster Resilience from the University of the West Indies (UWI), Jeremy Collymore is to deliver the annual Anguilla Social Security Board/UWI Open Campus Lecture. It is slated for November 1 and is part of the activities marking Social Security Week 2018 under the theme “Social Security: Supporting a Culture of National Resilience.”
Currently serving as Advisor for Disaster Resilience in the Office of the Vice Chancellor of the UWI, Collymore is a geographer with training in environmental design and planning. His more than 35 years of service in the field of disaster risk management has included research, teaching, programme design, implementation and review, policy development and advocacy.
He was Executive Director of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) from 1991 until 2013, where his work in championing the regional Comprehensive Disaster Management (CDM) strategy in the Caribbean is well recognised. He was also an architect of the Regional Strategy for Comprehensive Disaster Management which champions resilient development. In his current capacity he is coordinating a UWI Resilience Initiative with its purpose to champion resilience in the Caribbean.
Collymore is a strong advocate for cultural change to build disaster resilience in the Caribbean and has served as a keynote or lead speaker for over 100 conferences and seminars at the United Nations (UN), ministerial, technical and community levels. He has also served on a wide range of national, regional and UN working groups and task forces focusing on resilience, climate change, early warning systems and disaster risk management. In 2013 the UWI designated him an Honorary Research Fellow in its Institute for Sustainable Development.
The Lecture is free and open to the public and the Anguilla Social Security Board and UWI Open Campus Anguilla look forward to the participation of a wide cross-section of the Anguillian population.