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Since 2019, Belize and Taiwan have worked together to strengthen the early warning systems for disasters in Belize. But back then, it was mainly a flood early warning system. Then in February, they expanded these systems with the Belize Multi-Hazard Risk Management Capacity Building Project.

And today, the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Climate Change, and the Ministry of Disaster Risk Management signed an MOU to make it a multi-agency project. Minister Orlando Habet told us more.

Orlando Habet, Minister of Sustainable Development
"What has happened is that we have had a prior project through support from the Taiwanese Technical Mission and the embassy for early warning systems. We have seen that it has worked but because of the work we do and the work that the Ministry under Henry Charles does, we see there are lot of similarities, there are actually cross-cutting issues and so we decided for us to be able to work together, we had to come up with a project which is an approach to multi-hazard risk management so we're not only looking at one hazard at a time, we're looking at the potential of all these possible hazards that at some time could affect Belize and we have to be better prepared."

"Communities have already been identified where the work will take place, also a task force between the two ministries has been formed and they will work along with the project coordinators which is from the Technical Mission Taiwan to look at those communities, identify the hazards and start working towards a plan for the multi-hazards."

He added that their focus as it relates to disasters is strengthening the response to wildfires.

Orlando Habet, Minister of Sustainable Development
"For us one of the most important things we're looking at is fire management, wildfire management. It is difficult for us, very expensive for example if a fire were to burst out in the Columbia Reserve, in the Chiquibul Forest, we can't reach it, we don't have the funding to pay helicopters because one won't do it, to be able to take water, so prevention is what is important but because of the El Niño because of climate change it's really difficult to do. If you recall, three, four years ago, for Hurricane Lisa, when it passed through the country a lot of fuel was put down on the ground because all these branches of the broad-leaf forest broke, went to the ground and when the dry season came, that was fuel for fire and exactly that occurred in the following year so we have to be prepared."

Project Manager Lori Lin outlined the three main pillars driving the initiative:

Lori Lin, Project Manager - Belize Multi-Hazard Disaster Risk Management
"The first component is about integrating the different agencies, we need to have a deeper coordination and the second component is about the monitoring station, monitoring the forest wildfire, and the third component is about community resilience so we went out to the communities to have a training, and we will do the potential map to do the early warning system to help the risk communities so when a risk is coming, we can give some warning."

And the National Emergency Coordinator at NEMO explained why it was important that this project had the collaboration of both ministries.

Daniel Mendez, National Emergency Coordinator - NEMO
"This collaboration is important because we combine issues of early warning through strengthening the Met Service and the Hydrology Service in order to be able to give us enough information to let people know of something happening and so it just goes back to the nature of disaster management where we have to collaborate so this project involves multiple agencies but the most important part is working with communities and so the work is translated in the work that we see in the communities themselves. So the beneficiaries of all this, the information, all of the science that is being strengthened will be the villages and the cities and the towns that will be on the list."

"It continues the work that started in the Belize River Valley particularly up in the San Ignacio area and we are basically working on the river and trying to reach those communities that are in that area, it's also targeting new communities that we haven't had the chance to work with as yet so it's a continuation of the work."