CDB/IDB Sponsor Regional Disaster Risk Management Workshop"Poor people are more likely to live in disaster-prone areas and tend to have fewer resources for coping, such as savings and insurance." This assertion was made by Mr. Luis Alberto Moreno, President of the Inter-American Development Bank, this morning when he spoke at the opening ceremony of a workshop on Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Reduction.Mr. Moreno is on his first official visit to the Caribbean since assuming the IDB presidency on October 1 last year.In his view, "The need for effective management of natural disaster risks is self-evident. From the recent flooding in Suriname to the devastating hurricane seasons of the last two years, we have all seen the immense social costs of natural disasters. We have seen families displaced from their homes, human lives lost, communities destroyed and livelihoods disrupted. It is often people in the lower ranks of the economic pyramid that are most severely affected."The two-day workshop entitled "Management of Disaster Risk Through Fiscal and Budget Planning" is a joint initiative of the IDB and the Caribbean Development Bank. Permanent secretaries from Ministries of Finance and Planning and national disaster coordinators from throughout the region are attending the workshop at CDB's Conference Centre in Barbados.Dr. Compton Bourne, President of CDB, said at the opening ceremony that the workshop "aims at placing natural hazard risk reduction and risk management centre stage in the work of Ministries of Finance and Planning. It seeks to show participants how their activities can become integral to the goal of reducing vulnerabilities of their national communities as well as how their activities can assist in the better management of natural hazard risks by the public sector, the business sector and the household sector." He expressed the hope that the results of the workshop would find their way quickly into the annual work programmes and policies of the region's governments.