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The Unit­ed King­dom on Wednes­day signed an agree­ment with the Bar­ba­dos-based Caribbean Dis­as­ter Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency (CDE­MA) that will pro­vide fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance to re­gion­al coun­tries should they be im­pact­ed dur­ing the 2025 At­lantic Hur­ri­cane sea­son that be­gins in June.

“As in the past, we com­mit to re­spond to any CDE­MA re­quest with­in 24 hours re­gard­ing the avail­abil­i­ty of funds, recog­nis­ing the crit­i­cal im­por­tance of time­ly and hu­man­i­tar­i­an ac­tion,” the British High Com­mis­sion­er to Bar­ba­dos and the East­ern Caribbean, Si­mon Mus­tard, said at the sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny.

He told re­porters that the agree­ment al­lows for US$375,000 to go to­wards any hur­ri­cane-af­fect­ed mem­ber states of CDE­MA to pro­vide re­lief and that CDE­MA al­ready has US$50,000 up­front to al­low for a quick re­sponse.