MapAction needs new funding to respond to the estimated scale of global disasters in 2024, particularly in the Caribbean – where Hurricane Beryl is already wreaking devastation – and Asia.
Hurricane Beryl continues to leave devastation throughout the Caribbean. As information floods in, agencies like the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), that is coordinating the response, need to understand the data coming from more than a dozen affected islands. MapAction members are on the ground supporting them by making maps: which communities are worst affected; where are emergency shelters, which roads and critical infrastructure have been damaged. These are just some of the key data points that MapAction’s team quickly maps to ensure support and aid goes where it is most needed.
Maps help decision-makers to save lives when disasters strike. Risk and impact can quickly be assessed; aid and support sent to where it is most needed. But deploying teams from our team of 70+ experienced humanitarian mappers costs money. We have been able to deploy teams so far to Grenada and St Vincent and the Grenadines thanks to support from the German Federal Foreign Office’s Fund for Humanitarian Assistance. We need more for future responses, in what is predicted to be an exceptional hurricane season.
Nobody can predict the exact number of disasters where our help will be requested. What we know is that the climate emergency is driving an increase in the number of natural disasters; hurricanes, typhoons, floods, droughts, conflict and much more. We are limited in the requests we can respond to.