Suriname builds resilience through early warning
Suriname seeks to strengthen its national resilience agenda with a clear priority: reduce risk before it becomes loss. The country is committed to align institutions, improving risk information, and expanding early warning so that alerts translate into early action to protect people, infrastructure, livelihoods and development gains.
Suriname sets a practical starting point for this agenda: expanding access to disaster risk data and advancing a comprehensive multi-hazard early warning roadmap through the Early Warnings for All (EW4All) initiative, with the support of the Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems (CREWS) initiative. This direction brings institutions and partners around one shared pathway, strengthening what exists, identifying gaps, and defining the actions and resources required to deliver early warning for all.
EW4All helps Suriname connect the full early warning chain, from understanding the risk to monitoring and forecasting to communication, preparedness and response, so communities receive timely information, understand it, and act upon it. The process yields a concrete outcome: a national gap analysis and a costed implementation plan that supports coordinated delivery and helps accelerate financing for inclusive, multi-hazard early warning.
This nationally led effort will also strengthen how coordination works in practice. Disaster risk reduction responsibilities sit across ministries and agencies, and progress depends on collaboration that is steady and predictable. Suriname seeks to reinforce institutional arrangements that keep risk reduction integrated into policies, planning and investment decisions.
Suriname will also advance toward stronger measurement and accountability by preparing to begin reporting to the Sendai Framework Monitor. This effort will support evidence-based decision-making and enhance the national picture of impacts and progress. Over time, strengthening how risk information is organized and used supports smarter planning and more risk-informed development choices.
The country’s direction is reinforced through broad engagement across government, technical services and the private sector, bringing together perspectives that are essential to a whole-of-society approach. This multi-stakeholder approach helps to set an important and concrete agenda for 2026 to strengthen access to risk data and harness multi-sectoral support to advance early warning systems.
“Disaster risk reduction is about building the systems that keep development safe, especially by connecting early warning to early action,” said Nahuel Arenas, Chief of UNDRR’s Regional Office for the Americas and the Caribbean. “When risk information, clear roles and preparedness work together, countries move from responding to hazards to managing risk in a way that saves lives and reduces losses.”
“The United Nations system has been working closely with the Government of Suriname introducing innovations and new technologies to manage natural hazards and climate change. We are committed to supporting Suriname’s nationally led resilience agenda—strengthening institutions, advancing Early Warnings for All, and deepening regional cooperation so communities and development gains are protected across Suriname and the wider Caribbean,” said Joanna Kazana, UN Resident Coordinator for Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten.
As Suriname embarks in this pathway there are ample opportunities to deepen regional cooperation, share experience with neighboring countries, learn from peers, and shape collective solutions across the Caribbean and the wider Americas.