Making the Highways Climate Change Resilient

Representing the Minister of Economic Development at today’s Memorandum of Understanding signing was C.E.O. Yvonne Hyde. Hyde is also the Chair of the Project Steering Committee of the Belize Climate Resilience Infrastructure Project.   B-CRIP partnered with the World Bank for the preparation of a national climate-resilient investment programmme, which included consultations with the public, private and N.G.O. sectors. The goal is to reduce the vulnerability of the country to economic shocks, natural hazards and long term effects of climate change. B-CRIP identified the transport sector for priority treatment. According to C.E.O. Hyde, the project will see the upgrading of road networks to be more resistant to the effects of climate change.

Yvonne Hyde, C.E.O., Ministry of Economic Development

Yvonne Hyde

“The objective of CRIP are twofold: to enhance the resilience of road infrastructure against flood risk and the impacts of climate change and to improve the borrowers capacity to respond promptly and effectively to an eligible crisis or emergency as required. The project, which is funded by the world bank together with government counterpart is comprised of several components, the first being that of the physical infrastructure to which the bulk of the funds which have been approved by the bank would be focused on. We will focus the project on the rehabilitation of sixteen miles of highway from the Vista del Mar junction to the Gardenia/ Byscane interface on the Philip Goldson Highway to reduce physical vulnerability to flooding and natural hazards. The second component is technical support for improved climate resilience management and this speaks to strengthening the capacity of the Ministry of Works and Natural Resources to mainstream climate resilience considerations into core physical and investment planning”