Connecting Business initiative

07/11/2025

In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, one of the CBI Team members was "sheltering in place" with friends in New York City. They had all stocked up on food, water, and batteries for flashlights, but when the power went out, only two of the four people in that apartment had thought to COOK the food ahead of time (a surprisingly easy oversight).

This issue of stocking up on food in preparation for emergencies, and making it easy so that people and organizations don't have to eat canned beans for days or think of alternate sources of power is exactly what the Barbados Manufacturers Association and partners set out to solve.

The Ration Pack Project provides locally sourced, seasonal meals in cans, ready to eat and full of local flavors. It gives farmers a new market for their produce, and offers a local option for anyone invested in disaster preparedness.

Full story on the CBI webpage.

30/10/2025

This month (Oct. 2025), Mexico faced some of its most intense and erratic rainfall in recent years, triggering widespread flooding across central and Gulf states. Extraordinary volumes of rain, the likes of which hadn't been seen in more than eight decades, met river basins already swollen at the end of the rainy season.

The combination of saturated soils, overflowing rivers, and steep terrain led to flash floods and landslides that swept through urban and rural communities alike.

To date, Cenaced, the CBI Member Network in Mexico, has been working with the government, mobilizing and coordinating private sector support.

They have delivered:

🫘 over 123 tonnes of food

💧 70,000 litres of water

🥛 73,000 litres of milk

📦 13,000 humanitarian aid kits

🍽️ And 13 community kitchens are serving 49,000 hot meals daily, thanks to the mobilisation of local partners.

Beyond food assistance, the network has deployed medical and humanitarian brigades, heavy machinery, and equipment to reopen six key access routes. Donations include water tanks, purification systems, filters, and essential household items. Furthermore, electronic vouchers and direct cash transfers have been distributed to affected families.

More information is available on the CBI website under emergencies, or you can DM us if you want to see if and how you can help.

Photo: Enrique Polito/Medical Impact

27/10/2025

🌀 Hurricane Melissa, a now Cat-5 storm, is about to make landfall in Jamaica. The private sector has been working hand in hand with government and United Nations agencies to make sure everyone is as prepared as they can be.

What does that look like?

🥫 Supplies on the ground equivalent to 6 weeks to 3 months worth

💧 Essential supplies have been pre-positioned across the island so that they can be delivered quickly to those in need

🌊 The government has allocated millions of dollars for the cleaning of drains and gullies to allow for better water run-off

🏫 Over 800 schools and other areas have been set up for persons who live in flood-prone areas and those who may be vulnerable

🚜 Heavy equipment has been mobilized across the island for use after the hurricane to clear roads

🩺 Hospitals have gone into emergency mode and are sending home non-critical patients

To read more about how different partners are working together and ready to coordinate an emergency response, check out our emergency page on the CBI webs!te.

We'll be sharing updates as we know more.

In the meantime, our thoughts are with Jamaica and the Caribbean as they brace for impact, and we hope everyone will manage to stay safe.

Photo: The Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere at Colorado State University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (CSU/CIRA & NOAA).

20/10/2025

With the ceasefire in Gaza now holding, the private sector stands at the forefront of both the immediate humanitarian response and the long road to reconstruction.

This is a pivotal moment — one that calls for bold collaboration between public and private partners to turn the hope for peace into lasting progress.

📢 Join us TOMORROW for a special discussion bringing together senior United Nations leaders alongside regional companies and foundations to explore how the private sector can help shape Gaza’s recovery and renewal.

The conversation will include:
🔷 An overview by United Nations OCHA of the situation on the ground in Gaza, with an emphasis on urgent areas of potential collaboration.
🔷 Local and regional perspectives on what the private sector is already doing as well as key challenges.
🔷 An exchange around how best the response can feed into early recovery and reconstruction.

🚨What: Virtual briefing on “After the Ceasefire: Private sector support for Gaza”
⏰ When: Tuesday 21 October 9-10am NY time (GMT-4) / 4-5pm Cairo time (GMT+3)
🔗 Where: Online – register here: bit.ly/OCHA-PS-Gaza

We have an incredible lineup of executive level speakers, including:
Tom Fletcher (United Nations OCHA)
John W.H. Denton AO (International Chamber of Commerce)
Bediako Kwame Buahene (OCHA oPt)
Odey Zaghmouri (اتحاد الغرف التجارية الصناعية الزراعية الفلسطينية / Palestinian Federation of Chambers of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture)
Rim Siam ريم صيام‎ (Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce)
Aalia Jafar (Islamic Chamber of Commerce and Development - ICCD)
Jaco Cilliers (United Nations Development Programme - UNDP)

Don’t hesitate to share or tag a colleague or organization you think might be interested!


Note: Registration will close four hours prior to the event and requires an institutional affiliation.

16/10/2025

Many people cannot imagine what it's like to experience a Tropical Cyclone or an earthquake. In the Philippines, over the past few weeks, they have experienced:

🌀 Tropical Cyclone Bualoi (26 Sept, making landfall SIX times)
🫨 A 6.9 magnitude earthquake offshort of Cebu City (30 Sept)
🌀 Tropical Cyclone Matmo (5 Oct)
🫨 A 7.4 magnitude earthquake east of Mindanao Island, Davao (10 Oct), with a 6.9 magnitude aftershock

The Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation has mobilized private sector donations amounting to over USD108,000, reaching almost 69,000 individuals with relief assistance to date.

What does that look like, practically speaking?

📢 Organizing multiple briefing sessions to share updates on the impact, current situation, and status of relief operations

🚨 Deploying a team to Cebu to coordinate with the local governments and PDRF partners in the province

🔎 Assessing needs and validating priority needs while mapping the extent of the damage to critical infrastructure

🚚 Establishing local supply chain connections for the procurement and transportation of relief items

🥫 Distributing food and non-food items to affected communities

That's what a coordinated private sector mobilization can bring to emergency response - because PDRF have existing relationships and partnerships along with standard operating procedures, so when a crisis happens, everyone knows what to do.

That's what CBI is all about: supporting business networks so they can improve their capacity to prepare, respond to, and recover from disasters as part of the broader humanitarian architecture.

Photos:

🔷 PDRF Emergency Operations Center in Clark, Pampanga conducting a virtual network briefing for private sector partners on 2 October. Photo: PDRF

🔷 PDRF distributed food packs and hygiene kits to families affected by Typhoon Bualoi in Masbate. Photo: PDRF

10/10/2025

👩‍⚕️In the wake of disasters, the emotional and psychological toll on affected communities can be profound, requiring an approach that encompasses both physical and psychological care.

Recovery is not only about rebuilding what has been lost, but also about healing the invisible wounds left behind.

That’s why on World Mental Health Day, we're putting the spotlight on two examples where psychosocial support is a core component of disaster response – ensuring dignity, emotional care, and long-term resilience for those impacted:

🌊 In Sri Lanka, the Asia Pacific Alliance for Disaster Management Sri Lanka (A-PAD SL) trains learnt in 2014 that psychosocial support is essential to disaster response, and now they train their search and rescue first responders to look for signs of psychological distress.

🌀 In Mexico, Cenaced worked with partner organization AVSI Mexico to offer a series of workshops to one of the communities affected by Hurricane Otis. These focused on socioemotional skills that were complemented by community events designed to collectively develop a local resilience plan.

Below:

1. An image from AVSI Mexico coming out of one of the workshops

2. A quote from our Logistics Case Study by Kim Melville from DHL which reinforces the the importance of disaster management teams getting the support they need to continue showing up and doing their job - because that takes resilience, too.

(It's from our Instagram post - do you follow us on that platform? If not, check out our profile !)

Happy World Mental Health Day!

09/10/2025

Imagine someone you love has been in a car accident. What would you expect from medical services? Speed. Professionalism. Trained personnel. Kindness. No mistakes. Now ask yourself: shouldn’t that same quality of care apply to people affected by disasters?

That's how Felicity Fallon opened our recent webinar about Sphere Standards for business engagement in humanitarian efforts.

In case you haven't heard of them before, Sphere revolves around one idea: people affected by disasters deserve rapid, coordinated, professional care delivered with dignity.

With two great speakers from CBI Member Networks, Cynthia Espinoza Aranguré from Cenaced and Firzan Hashim from the Asia Pacific Alliance for Disaster Management Sri Lanka (A-PAD SL), all the boots-on-the-ground experience brought the relevance of the Sphere Standards to life.

🤔 Did you miss the conversation?

🙃 We thought that might happen.

✍ That's why we took the insightful exchange and wrote it up. And if you're more of a visual person, there's a YouTube video of the recording, too (it's at the bottom of the text on the CBI website - see the comment section for details!).



Photo by Community World Service Asia (CWSA) Pakistan: Nourishing families, nurturing resilience – CWSA’s interventions enables women to cook with dignity and ensure access to nutritious food, guided by Sphere’s standards.

30/09/2025

Today is World Tourism Day. Does that make you think of white sand beaches, discovering a new city and culture, or perhaps going on a hiking or train adventure?

That's fair. But businesses big and small in the tourism industry are also critical partners for 🚨disaster preparedness, response, and recovery🚨.

For example...

🩹 Staff can be trained in first aid as well as safety or evacuation drills, and companies can invest in resilient infrastructure

⛱️ Hospitality operations can serve as a key hub to transmit information to tourists, should there be a risk of a cyclone or hurricane, and hotels can offer shelter to tourists and displaced residents

🚗 Tour operators can connect to national disaster management agencies to make sure their assets (think vehicles, radios, and more) can be part of contingency planning

🪇 Cultural tourism can play a unique role in restoring the national image and catalyzing economic recovery in the aftermath of a crisis

We explore these ideas and more, with examples from Eastern and West Africa and Sri Lanka, and alongside two great resources for sustainable and resilient tourism, in our latest article - but if you know of other examples, we would love to hear about them!

Thank you to our partners who shared information about their members and regions Asia Pacific Alliance for Disaster Management Sri Lanka (A-PAD SL), the Federation of West African Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FEWACCI), and Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA)

Photos: A hotel in Ghana who took disaster risk reduction measures, and a Disaster Impact Map for Sri Lanka developed by Aitken Spence

30/09/2025

If you're interested in the below event, register now and join us tomorrow, Wednesday 1 October!

If your company big or small wants to do more when it comes to crises and emergency response, it doesn't have to be overwhelming or confusing. There are clear, practical guidelines that exist to make your journey much easier.

That's what we'll be talking about with the team at Sphere as well as our partners Asia Pacific Alliance for Disaster Management Sri Lanka (A-PAD SL) and Cenaced (from Mexico) in an upcoming webinar.

✅ Principled, accountable, and quality humanitarian assistance
💪 How to foster recovery with dignity & resilience to future crises
💦 Standards for Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH), food security, nutrition, shelter, and health

🤝 Private sector perspectives from Sri Lanka and Mexico

Curious?

Join us next week for our free webinar!

📢 "Strengthening Business Engagement in Humanitarian Action Through Sphere"
📅 Wednesday 1 October
⏰ 3-4pm GVA time (9-10am NY time)
🔗 Register here: http://bit.ly/4n7czrx
🗣️ English - French - Spanish interpretation available

Tag a friend, colleague, or organization who might be interested 👇

29/09/2025

😮Imagine having friends over for a BBQ and having to evacuate your (urban) home because a wildfire is raging through your neighborhood... terrifying, and brutal - because when your home burns down, all your photos and belongings go up in flames too.

🔥 After the February 2024 wildfires, Desafío Levantemos Chile - a CBI Member Network - was on the ground within 24h to support the affected communities with emergency response including debris removal kits and more.

BUT they also did a needs assessment to pave the way for recovery, and worked hand in hand with the Viña del Mar community to get them back on their feet.

The end result?

💪 72 homes rebuilt with improved fire-resistant materials, all within 10 months.

That's the power of the private sector, using competitive biding processes and high standards to enable the best possible results in the shortest reasonable amount of time, building on an approach that puts affected people and communities at the center of recovery efforts.

Photos: Desafío Levantemos Chile

25/09/2025

🎉 Welcome, Solomon Islands Chamber of Commerce & Industry (SICCI), to the CBI Community! 🎉

They are the newest CBI Member Network, bringing us to 21 private sector networks from all over the world.

SICCI will establish a Business Resilience Committee to better engage the private sector in disaster management and resilience building efforts, and we look forward to supporting them as well as connecting them to the other CBI Member Networks so they can learn from their peers.

We look forward to working together for a safer, more resilient world.

24/09/2025

In Mexico, hard-to-reach communities received 🪣debris removal kits and food packs from our partner Cenaced and their allies, BUT some residents explained that because🥫canned goods like tuna were not part of their traditional diet, they made them ill.

What would you do?

👂 CENACED and partners listened, and course-corrected.

They distributed🌽141,750kg of maize and 5,670kg of beans to 2,944 families (an estimated 9,038 people) across 25 communities in four municipalities. Priority was given to women, single mothers, widows and older people.

“The communities were grateful, not just for the support, but for feeling heard,” explained Hubert Matiúwàa from Colectivo Gusanos de la Memoria. “The maize and beans aren’t just essential to their way of life in terms of what they eat, but are sacred to these communities.”

That's what localization and inclusive disaster response really means.

Photos by Colectivo Gusanos de la Memoria