 Officials of the Ministry of Equity, Social Justice and Empowerment and their counterparts from the United Nations World Food Program WFP continue to fine-tune protocols to improve the shock-responsiveness of St. Lucia's social protection system. Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting widespread social and economic displacement in its wake, the Ministry of Equity, as government's lead implementing agency for social assistance, with the input of stakeholders, has crafted standard operating procedures, SOPs, to be used by relevant government institutions in the delivery of social protection services to vulnerable and disadvantaged groups in particular in the aftermath of disasters or shocks. What we are doing here is to review protocols that we have developed that speaks to clear roles and responsibilities in terms of response. So we have a role for NIMO. NIMO is part of the forum here today. We have other agencies who are also part of that whole system, identify what those roles are, at what point, what do we do, how do we do it, so that again, when you have that response, it is already established. We have rehearsed it, we have practiced it, and we can run seamlessly with it. Rapid mobilisation is critical for effective response post-exogenous shocks. And as such, the Ministry of Equity is examining a multiplicity of options for financing disaster risk response. We want to ensure that we can look at the modalities, look at the options, see what is feasible for St Lucia, and put things in place so that once we trigger and reactivate, we are able to access the resources that is required to support the response. The World Food Program has remained a consistent partner with the Ministry of Equity on several matters including the area of disaster risk financing. Program Policy Officer and country representative, Lilia Ramjewan, says shock responsive social protection is better administered when key government agencies like Equity, Nemo, Budget and Finance all operate in unison. Now that we are looking at shock responsive social protection, there is need to look at bringing those institutions together and look at how we collaborate, coordinate, identify roles and responsibilities because without coordination among those different line ministries, we would find that the efforts to link disaster risk management and the social sector would be difficult and pose problems. As part of a comprehensive reform process, the Ministry of Equity, Social Justice and Empowerment is well underway in conducting a review of St Lucia's social protection system and examining how existing mechanisms can be made more robust in order to adapt and provide critical support in a timely manner once a shock occurs.