How the Caribbean is building disaster-ready communities through information resilience

When disaster strikes in the Caribbean, information is more than a public good — it becomes a matter of survival. Yet, disaster resilience in the region depends on more than sounding alarms or rushing out warnings. Instead, it also depends on creating a network of informed, prepared, and connected communities where communication, local knowledge, and collaboration underpin every stage of disaster management.

In an interview with the Public Media Alliance, Dr. Paul Hector, the Advisor for Communication and Information at UNESCO Caribbean, stressed that resilience is not achieved by technical fixes alone, but by cultivating trust, participation, and a genuine multisectoral vision.

A multisectoral mandate

UNESCO’s reputation as an international standard-bearer in education, science, and culture is well established, but Dr. Hector’s perspective opens a crucial window onto the organisation’s often less visible, but equally vital, role in communication and information. “Our strength,” Dr. Hector emphasises, “lies in our multisectoral mandate.” For disaster risk reduction (DRR), this means drawing together knowledge and resources from across UNESCO’s focus areas and ensuring they work in concert rather than in silos.

In the Caribbean, the region’s vulnerability to hurricanes, earthquakes, drought, volcanoes, and more demands not only scientific monitoring and early warning systems – such as those operated globally by UNESCO – but also a deep commitment to education, so people are aware of the dangers they face and are equipped to act. This means traditional education, such as school curricula and building technical skills, but also preparing communities to use schools as shelters, to integrate disaster awareness into teacher training, and to make resilience commonplace.

While the natural sciences underpin disaster preparedness through monitoring, hazard mapping, and building the global infrastructure that helps predict and respond to crises, the cultural sector also holds an equally important place, Dr. Hector said, with the Caribbean’s living heritage, its stories and traditions, offering invaluable guidance on how communities have survived and adapted through the generations.

For Dr. Hector, communication and information, the area he leads for UNESCO Caribbean, are important to binding education, science, and culture all together. “It is about strengthening media systems and media capacity,” he said, “so that credible, reliable information flows before, during, and after disasters.”

Overcoming the disconnect

One of the most persistent challenges facing the Caribbean’s disaster response efforts, according to Dr. Hector, is the disconnect between those who develop disaster plans and those who need to act on them.

For instance, national disaster agencies often produce plans and protocols, but their impact is limited if communities are not informed, engaged, and equipped to respond. Effective communication ensures that vital knowledge moves up and down the chain, reaching everyone in society, especially those who are most vulnerable.

Furthermore, the Caribbean’s unique context – with its small populations, a diversity of languages, social and economic vulnerability, and the intensifying effects of climate change – only sharpens the need for an integrated approach, said Dr. Hector. Disaster resilience must therefore not be a top-down process; instead, it must be locally grounded and multidisciplinary, engaging education, culture, science, and, crucially, the media.

“Very often, we have experts who are part of our national and regional disaster response systems and, rightly so, a lot of time is often spent in terms of developing a variety of plans. But sometimes what we find is that this information is not necessarily trickling down, or it’s not being communicated in a way which is efficiently accessible to the persons on the ground … So we see overcoming this disconnect as a major challenge, and we see media playing a key role in helping to overcome this.”

For UNESCO Caribbean, the media plays a key role in “overcoming this disconnect”. As part of this, UNESCO has chosen to  focus on strengthening both the media’s capacity to communicate and the community’s ability to participate. In recent years, UNESCO has delivered training programmes for journalists and the development of public service announcements across the Caribbean, designed not only to increase knowledge of different hazards but to build relationships among the media, communities, and disaster management agencies. This work has produced a new kind of trust and partnership, Dr. Hector said, with journalists better able to access reliable information and disaster authorities better understanding the communication needs of their communities.

But the work extends beyond newsrooms. Dr. Hector describes projects that reach deep into the community fabric, such as in Jamaica, where, with support from the Government of New Zealand, UNESCO has trained community members to develop their own media content focused on disaster risk reduction. The approach is participatory, with community members contributing their own knowledge, stories, and insights. “There is so much valuable local knowledge in these communities,” he said. In Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, schools have become another focal point for overcoming the disconnect. “When students understand disaster risk, they take that knowledge home to their families,” Dr. Hector notes. The provision of community “radio in a box” kits has also proven transformative, providing a trusted source of information that remains accessible when other infrastructure fails.

Media as a social lifeline

But the media’s goal is not limited to fostering a harmonious flow of information between authorities and citizens and they can instead be active partners in making information accessible, relevant, and trusted. For Dr. Hector’s expansive vision of the media’s role, it’s not only technical and practical, but deeply social and ethical.

“Media are a social lifeline,” he said. Especially during disasters, he added, they help communities deal with uncertainty, counter rumours, and provide a sense of hope and continuity when normal life is upended. However, this lifeline function is tested by the realities of disaster: frequent power cuts, damaged infrastructure, and journalists who, like everyone else, are dealing with the impact of the disaster on their own families and communities.

UNESCO has responded to these challenges with hands-on support. Dr. Hector also noted PMA’s current project in the form of a data journalism project focused on disaster risk reduction and preparedness, which is being supported by his office. These interventions are not just about technology and training, but about preserving the social contract that holds communities together.

However, infrastructure is only one part of the story. Journalists themselves are under pressure. “[They’re] working in situations which are not normal. They are impacted by the disasters, just as the most in the community. They may be worrying about. What is my family doing at this moment while I’m out here covering the news.” He said too that they are facing ethical dilemmas about how to cover suffering, loss, and uncertainty. For instance, the way journalists ask questions, the tone they use, and the choices they make can either add to a community’s distress or help to restore hope and cohesion.

Meanwhile, disasters are also a breeding ground for misinformation and rumours, especially in the digital age. To counter this, Dr. Hector stressed that it  was essential that journalists are equipped to fact-check, verify, and use digital tools to prevent the spread of misinformation since “public trust depends on it.”

Building information resilience

Looking to the future, UNESCO Caribbean’s priorities are clear: building robust, inclusive systems of information resilience that are woven into the everyday lives of Caribbean people. This ambition is not limited to any single campaign or intervention, Dr. Hector said; it’s about creating a culture where disaster awareness, media literacy, and the ability to source trusted information are second nature.

Among the top priorities in building information resilience is targeting youth, who Dr. Hector see as key messengers and multipliers of disaster awareness. Digital tools and artificial intelligence are also essential, with risk assessments, risk communication, and the fight against misinformation all closely linked to digital literacy and access to new technologies.

But technology alone cannot replace trust, local knowledge, or the social bonds that tie communities together. In this, the media must play a leading role in encouraging peer-to-peer communication, amplifying local voices, and making risk awareness part of everyday life. Further, they must be supported to fill this role effectively. Drawing from his own experiences, Dr. Hector shared how, as a schoolboy, his local radio station invited students to act as reporters, sharing stories and news from their own schools. The excitement and engagement this generated became a model for building trust and connection between media and community. In a recent project with Maroon communities in Jamaica, UNESCO has worked to give platforms to indigenous storytellers, showing that local knowledge is not only valuable but essential to effective disaster communication.

However, the media – while an essential lifeline during  disasters – is often not considered and supported in its disaster risk reduction  efforts. “What is the physical impact of disasters on media availability to gather and broadcast? How is it impacting their families? Does the media have preparedness plans? And how can we support and develop tools for them?” It was with  these questions in mind that Dr. Hector spearheaded the development of the Rapid Post-Disaster Needs Assessment Survey for Media Institutions, a framework for assessing the impact of a disaster on a media institution as well as its recovery and reconstruction needs. The framework, originally conceptualised for the Caribbean, has since been translated for use in other regions facing disasters.

Meanwhile, inclusivity is another priority when it comes to true disaster resilience, Dr. Hector emphasised. When women, youth, elders, and persons with disabilities are all part of the conversation, disaster communication becomes stronger and more just. Furthermore, as the region’s vulnerabilities touch every sector, from tourism and agriculture to logistics, the private sector’s active involvement is essential. This involvement, he added, would join forces with government, civil society, and media to build a system that can withstand any crisis.