In light of the increasing risk of the Covid-19 ‘Coronavirus’ which the World Health Organization has now declared a global pandemic, the RDA conducted a ‘Work from Home’ trial to test its operations in the event of a real-life emergency. This is in line with guidance from the National (Health) Emergency Operations Centre to finalize, test and evaluate plans. On the morning of March 11th, most members of the RDA conducted business remotely with individuals remaining at home and logging into RDA systems through their work laptop.
Staff were able to access files, collaborate on projects and conduct meetings via video conferencing using a variety of mobile office applications. Conducting this test in advance of such working procedures being required, helped to ensure the team is familiar with remote working processes and identified potential issues and constraints of the plan.
A ‘hot debrief’ as well as an electronic survey were conducted following the trial in order to capture issues and lessons for analysis to improve the plan going forward.
The Government of the Virgin Islands created the Virgin Islands Recovery and Development Agency (RDA) with the passage of the Virgin Islands Recovery and Development Agency Act (Act No. 1 2018). Our mandate is comprised of three main components. They are to:
Deliver the program and projects under the revised RDP, in accordance with the Implementation Schedule agreed with Government;
• Raise external funding to complement Government funding for the projects delivered by the RDA
• Build the capacity of Virgin Island contractors, government officials, communities and staff seconded to the RDA.