Mr Jeremy Collymore

Mr. Jeremy Collymore is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Institute for Sustainable Development. He is also Consultant for Disaster Resilience  at the Office of the Vice Chancellor, the University of the West Indies.

Mr. Collymore is a former Executive Director of Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA). He is a trained  Geographer, Environmental Designer and Planner, who has provided leadership in Disaster Management operations in the Caribbean region  focussing on research; policy development; programme design, implementation and evaluation for almost three decades. He began by closely observing issues concerning Disaster Risk Management (DRM) in the region, while pursuing an MPhil degree in Geography at the Mona Campus. His graduate training in Environmental Design and Planning at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) provided the foundation for him to advocate for and position Disaster Risk Management as a discipline in the Caribbean. In his various leadership positions, he lobbied for policy and application in the area; convened an intercampus discussion network on disaster management and channeled human resources to embrace the discipline by honing the interests of many students at Secondary, Undergraduate and Graduate levels in Barbados and Jamaica.

Mr. Collymore has served the region in Disaster Management for more than thirty (30) years. On the 50^th Anniversary of Independence in Barbados, he was conferred with the Barbados Service Star in recognition of his outstanding leadership and contribution to Disaster Management at national, regional and global levels. The citation for the investiture at the 50^th Anniversary of Independence noted: “He used Barbados and the Caribbean as the context of his theoretical application and challenged the then paradigms about both development and disaster management planning and practice…Mr. Collymore has worked tirelessly, with stakeholders, to transform adhoc procedures and programs in DRM in the region to structured plans and programmes; to create the first sub-regional intergovernmental organization specializing in DRM and later a strategic framework for linking DRM to sustainable development…The Regional Response Mechanism (RRM) and the Comprehensive Disaster Management (CDM) Strategic Framework have served as models in many regions of the world.” (Government of Barbados, 2016)

Mr Collymore has also received the CDEMA Council Award in 2015 for his dedication to the advancement of Comprehensive Disaster Management (CDM).

Mr. Collymore was appointed in 1991 as the Coordinator of CARICOM’s Regional Agency for the Coordination of Disaster Emergency Response, the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency (CDERA). He led the transition from CDERA to the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) in 2009.

Mr. Collymore advocated for and initiated the advancement of Disaster Risk Management as a discipline in the Caribbean and was  for over three decades, at the forefront in positioning it in the development of national and regional disaster management policies, their implementation and evaluation.

Mr. Collymore has many publications about Disaster Management and Climate Adaptation.  He has represented the Caribbean at the regional and International levels (including the United Nations) on Task Forces, Advisory and  Working Groups as well as Evaluation Committees.

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