Whether you live in the rural or urban areas, in times of disaster, the National Emergency Management Organization should be able to effectively alert those at risk of any potential threats.

Raul Salazar, Resident Coordinator, United Nations
"An early warning is how we can better detect through the systems we have, infrastructure, meteorological systems for example, how we collect that information and how we ensure that information reaches the communities with enough time to take a protective measures, a preventative measure before the disasters strike."

It's true that there are numerous forms of technology to do so, there's the radio, TV, social media platforms and text messaging, but how can we inform those who are off the grid and don't have access to any of those media? The Coordinator for NEMO says this is why they have partnered with the UN to address these gaps in Belize's warning system.

Daniel Mendez, Coordinator, NEMO
"So the objective for today is several folds, number one is to talk about this concept called multi hazard early warning and it's really looking at we as a country how we can better prepare our people all people within our country for all hazards so it's not looking only at hurricanes or tropical storms but how can we provide for people information and warnings for everything. So potentially if there is a damn break, a fire or a flood, how do we provide people with the information they need to make the decision to maintain their safety at that time. So that is number one, the second thing we are trying to do here is take ahead the United Nations secretary general's idea for early warning in Belize, how do we implement that program to ensure that we also as a nation are doing our best to also promote an ensure that we are able to do our part in ensuring that everyone in Belize receives early warnings for hazards and really that is the idea of our work today."

"It's not a system as a machine or software it's a system of tools that we have been utilising and so we utilise risk information is how we train people how we get information to people and how we ensure that information is used by people and so it's less of a, it's more of an idea and so it's how do we strengthen what we have built in country what we have done right with demo in our ability to get people information for hurricanes and floods and expand that and ensure we are able to provide information to the public for any hazard you may encounter."

It's a partnership between not only private and public sector entities, but it will also require the commitment from communities as well. In the longer run not only will it save lives but it can also save us from economic and infrastructural loss.

Raul Salazar, Resident Coordinator, United Nations
"There is a calculation of how many people can be saved by early warning and it's very high the number that if you prevent rather than you expect the impacts and then allocate costs to serve the people and the proportion is immense it's 1-10 really so it is important to dedicate those efforts and allocate those resources to prevent to provide early warning rather than to dedicate those efforts to attend to emergencies."

Nahuel Arenas, Regional Chief, America's & Caribbean UN Disaster Risk Reduction
"Early warning systems are a proven mechanism to save lives to save livelihoods, to reduce the impacts of disasters on infrastructure and to reduce the increasing economic costs of disasters, we are observing an increasing magnitude and impact of disasters and by 2030 we expect that a medium to large size disaster will take place in the world, everyday, there are 560 disasters per year that Is one and a half medium to big disasters every day so this is really something we cannot afford and we need to make sure that even hazards if they continue to exist that they do not result in disasters, and to make sure that hazards do not result in disasters we need to work on the vulnerabilities and that is exactly what an early warning system does they strength our capacity and reduce vulnerabilities to make sure that when there is an extreme weather event it does not result in a disaster that costs us lives and economic impact."