Private Sector Activities in Disaster Risk Reduction Good Practices and Lessons Learned United Nations 2008

In 2000, former US President Bill Clinton asked the United States Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to implement Project Impact, a community-based mitigation initiative, in six Central American and Caribbean countries that were devastated by hurricanes Georges and Mitch. Project Impact had been used for a number of years in the United States to help communities prepare for natural disasters by linking the private and public sectors on hazard mitigation projects that benefited communities by reducing disaster vulnerability to the community and to participating businesses. The program forged private and public sector partnerships in fourteen communities in Haiti, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Projects were selected that would minimize future disaster damages as well as protect the assets of the private sector. Seed funds were combined with private sector donations of cash and in-kind services. Dozens of projects resulted that have proven helpful in minimizing disaster damages. This project has also been a catalyst in launching similar community-based mitigation initiatives that involve the private and public sectors in Latin America. Building a disaster resistant community: Project impact in Central America and the Caribbean Private Sector Activities in Disaster Risk Reduction 3 Photo by James Lee Witt Associates