In 2019, the Caribbean Action Plan on Health and Climate Change was approved by Ministers of Health, Environment, and Climate Change of Caribbean countries and territories. The plan addresses the common challenges posed by climate change on health and provide a roadmap for integrated action to protect health and promote sustainable development, under a changing climate.

PAHO/WHO is seeking to support CARICOM Member States in implementing the Caribbean Action Plan, through this Readiness proposal to the Green Climate Fund. Seven countries are included as direct beneficiaries of the underlying activities: Belize, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts & Nevis and Trinidad & Tobago. This readiness proposal aims to fulfill the vision of the Action Plan to “ensure that the region is fully engaged in global climate change processes and agreements (...), benefit Caribbean countries and territories by strengthening their technical cooperation methods, and facilitate the access to human, technical and financial resources necessary to address the effects of climate change on health”.

The main expected results from this proposal are:

• Strengthen institutional, political and technical capacities through established and operational health-climate change committees;
• Generate baseline data (e.g. country profiles on health and climate change and a multi-country health V&A) and engage whole-of-society in consultations for enhancing health issues integration in national and regional plans and strategies;
• Build a pipeline of projects on health and climate change, and create capacities to prepare and implement project proposals;
• Estimate health sector’s carbon footprint;
• Estimate the health co-benefits, and avoided impact economic costs, from different emission pathways proposed in national documents;
• Prepare strategies and project proposals for the development of climate and health data integration systems;
• National representatives trained and technical knowledge and capacities enhanced to address climate change and health issues;
• Communication strategies for public awareness and outreach on health and climate change developed

The direct beneficiaries of readiness proposal are NDAs, Health ministries and climate change ministries in the seven participating CARICOM Member States.