The Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) has lauded its partner, the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF) for its Regional Internship Programme, as it welcomes a new intern to its Barbados headquarters. The initiative gives recent university graduates and young professionals throughout the Caribbean an opportunity to enhance their work experience in disaster risk management. This year, the Bank welcomes Carlene Jones, a national of Grenada, to its Environmental Sustainability Unit. Carlene is a graduate of the Master of Disaster Management Programme at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Carlene Jones will enhance her work experience in disaster risk management during her internship period with the Bank' Environmental Sustainability Unit. Launched in 2015, the Regional Internship Programme has placed 45 interns at 18 national and regional organisations, including CDB. The Programme is designed to provide educational experience and practical work opportunities for students with degrees in areas such as disaster risk management; environmental management; actuarial science; geography; climate studies; and other similar areas. CDB' Coordinator, Environmental Sustainability Unit, Cheryl Dixon noted that the Bank has benefited from the internship programme. “Through CCRIF' internship programme, CDB has received valuable assistance with the documentation of valuable baseline country-specific climate data, to support analysis of climate change issues of its Borrowing Member Countries (BMCs). CCRIF' interns have been an asset to our work on environmental sustainable issues that affect the Caribbean," she said. The Programme has also contributed to projects in the Bank' BMCs, such as Saint Lucia' Five-Year Multi-Sectoral Disaster Risk Reduction Work Programme for the National Emergency Management Organisation, and the preparation of a readiness proposal for the Government of Guyana to access the Green Climate Fund. The application window for next year' internships will open in early 2017. For more information, visit the CCRIF website or follow CCRIF on Facebook and Twitter. CCRIF is the world' first multi-country catastrophe risk pooling facility - established with the key objective of helping to mitigate the short-term cash flow problems small developing economies face after major natural disasters. CCRIF was developed through funding from the Japanese Government, and was capitalised through contributions to a multi-donor Trust Fund by the Government of Canada, the European Union, the World Bank, the governments of the United Kingdom and France, CDB and the Governments of Ireland and Bermuda, as well as through membership fees paid by participating Governments.