Strategy to retrofit homes against hurricanes and flooding launched

Published on May 4, 2026

Caribbean governments have initiated cooperation to retrofit existing homes against increasingly severe hurricanes, flooding and other climate hazards.

The initiative, announced recently in Trinidad and Tobago, aims to scale up housing resilience investments across more than 15 Caribbean nations.

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), in partnership with regional governments, will develop a joint housing resilience investment programme.

The programme will combine home improvement grants and concessional loans with technical assistance, government-supported retrofits for homeowners unable to do the work themselves, skills training for workers and homeowners, support for home insurance, and institutional strengthening of housing authorities.

Under a recently launched Regional Public Goods Technical Cooperation (TC) titled “Home is Where the Hurt Is”, IDB will conduct primary data collection and systematic analyses of housing typologies and resilience deficits across several participating nations.

Governments will use this data to develop a Regional Policy and Operational Manual for housing retrofits, establishing standardised approaches that can be replicated across the Caribbean.

According to Mr. Anton Edmunds, General Manager of the Caribbean Country Department at the IDB, "For Caribbean families, a home is not just shelter; it is a symbol of community; of belonging and of economic security."