Decision-making for strengthening climate resilience: dealing with data paucity in the Caribbean water supply sector

The Caribbean accounts for seven of the world’s top 36 water-stressed countries and FAO defines many Caribbean countries as water scarce, with less than 1000 m3 freshwater resources per capita per year. Climate change will bring rising temperatures, increases in evaporation and potentially less rainfall. This means the Caribbean is likely to experience more intense and frequent droughts. Compounding this, paucity of data, lack of technical capacity and an absence of structured methodologies to assess and identify climate resilience measures has hindered evidence-based decision-making to address climate challenges in the water supply sector in the Caribbean. This paper draws on experiences from five Caribbean countries – Grenada, St Kitts & Nevis, Dominica, Antigua & Barbuda and St Lucia – and their stakeholder-led processes assess climate risks, identify priorities for investment, and financing for their effective implementation. The countries followed a common structured approach centred on four key stages namely: Engaging stakeholders and setting objectives; Assessing risks and identifying options; Prioritising options and planning for implementation; and Monitoring and evaluating progress. As part of the approach, a series of national multi-stakeholder workshops, supplemented by the best available information and analyses, were used to define common objectives, analyse options and reach consensus on priorities. The combination of quantitative analyses, novel communication methods and expert elicitation led ultimately to the development of investment plans for improving climate resilience, whilst also building knowledge and capacity among national stakeholders along the way