USAID provides vocational training and improves employment opportunities for at-risk youth in the Eastern Caribbean to become more productive members of society. These young people are most vulnerable to recruitment by gangs and involvement with illicit activities. Drug trafficking is a key problem facing the Eastern Caribbean, whose nations have increasingly been used as transit points for drugs bound for the United States. Violent crime associated with narcotics trafficking has been on the rise, and the per capita murder rates of some Eastern Caribbean nations are among the highest in the world. In addition to vocational and life skills training, USAID works to strengthen basic education and national juvenile justice systems whileencouraging rehabilitation of youth offenders, reintegration into society, and restorative justice as an alternative to the formal legal system for minor crimes.
Countries in the Eastern Caribbean are acutely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, including coastal erosion, changing rainfall patterns, and the increased length and intensity of the yearly hurricane season. USAID climate change programs reduce risk to human and natural assets resulting from climate change variability.
To sustainably address the AIDS epidemic in the Caribbean, USAID’s HIV/AIDS programs support HIV prevention, strategic information sharing, health systems strengthening, and care for persons with HIV and AIDS in the region.
Last updated: May 10, 2013