The Higher Education Taskforce for Disaster Resilience (HEDE) in partnership with the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ), will be hosting a Hurricane Melissa Data Symposium on Wednesday, October 28, 2026, marking the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Melissa. The Symposium will be held from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at The University of the West Indies (The UWI), Mona Campus.

The Symposium will provide an opportunity for key stakeholders to strengthen coordination and collaboration around the collection, management, sharing and use of disaster-related data. Specifically, the Symposium will seek to:

1. Establish a national climate and disaster data inventory;
2. Review post-disaster assessments undertaken following Hurricane Melissa;
3. Identify priority data gaps and institutional partners;
4. Assess the use of data in disaster risk management and decision-making; and
5. Define pathways for action, collaboration and integration.

The Symposium will contribute to three linked outputs, each with designated institutional owners and delivery timelines:

• A National Climate and Disaster Data Gap Matrix;
• A Data Project Pipeline to be advanced through HEDE sub-committees; and
• A Data Access Compact among participating institutions.