Kingston, Jamaica, 13 August 2024. As major drivers of economic development in the Caribbean region, water-sensitive sectors such as tourism and agriculture contribute to the growing demand and burden on the Region’s water resources. Emerging environmental health concerns such as climate sensitive water-related infectious diseases threaten the quality of water supplies and warrant a more cross-sectoral and multi-hazard approach to water quality monitoring and surveillance.
The Regional Action Framework for Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) provides an additional value in safeguarding the Region’s valuable water resources through improved fresh and coastal water resource management, sustainable land management, sustainable forest management, and enhanced resilience of socio-ecological systems to the impacts of climate change.
Under the GEF-IWEco Project, this initiative follows the May 2024 Regional Potable Water Quality Monitoring Workshop in Barbados, which aimed to support the development of national potable water quality monitoring plans inclusive of water quality indicators with the aim of future development of Water-related Infectious Disease (WRID) surveillance.
On July 23rd-24th, 2024, CARPHA in collaboration with the OECS Commission and UNEP-CEP hosted a “District Health Information System” workshop in Kingston, Jamaica for environmental health managers and water quality focal points from participating states: Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Grenada, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and Trinidad and Tobago.
Dr. Lisa Indar, Ad Interim Executive Director CARPHA, commended this initiative in strengthening institutional capacity and taking steps towards water quality surveillance in safeguarding the health and safety of both residents and visitors. She stated that “timely surveillance is critical in preparation for and response to emerging and re-emerging water-related infectious diseases and other environmental health threats facing the Caribbean region.”
The two-day workshop provided the opportunity to strengthen the capacity of national environmental health surveillance initiatives through the development of a national environmental surveillance platform for water quality monitoring using the District Health Information System (DHIS2) opensource tool.
Mr. Shane Kirton, Officer-in-Charge, Environmental Health and Sustainable Development CARPHA and CARPHA IWEco Project Manager, emphasised the importance of the DHIS2 training workshop in its alignment with the Roadmap of Action from the IWRM Framework, in building national capacity in water quality testing and reporting, advancing national water quality monitoring and ensuring ease of access to monitoring data for regional decision-making and policy development.
The objectives of the workshop include the introduction and sensitisation of national environmental health professionals to the water quality monitoring module of the DHIS2 platform and consult with national stakeholders on the country-specific user requirements to increase the robustness and applicability of the tool.
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