Addressing social vulnerabilities exacerbated by climate change

Cuba, as a Caribbean Small Island Developing State, is highly exposed to climate-related hazards, including hurricanes, droughts, floods and sea-level rise. These risks are shaped by and worsen underlying social vulnerabilities, affecting groups such as women with caregiving responsibilities, rural communities, youth, older persons, persons with disabilities, people living in poverty and coastal communities threatened by rising seas.

On 29 October 2025, Hurricane Melissa made landfall in eastern Cuba as a Category 3 hurricane, with sustained winds of up to 195 km/h and higher gusts. It caused major destruction, including power outages, damage to tens of thousands of homes and loss of communication for more than 3 million people across five provinces. However, thanks to Cuba’s disaster risk management system, no lives were lost, and 735,000 people were evacuated before the hurricane, equivalent to 25 per cent of the local population.

In support of national efforts, an Anticipatory Action Framework coordinated by OCHA, led by the UN Resident Coordinator and financed with $4 million from CERF, enabled the pre-positioning of critical supplies before the hurricane. These included water purification plants, food, hygiene kits and electric generators, coordinated with national institutions including the National Civil Defence System. A further $3.5 million CERF allocation was later approved under the UN Cuba Action Plan to support 1 million affected people.

While recovery from Hurricane Melissa continues, the UN in Cuba is also supporting longer-term prevention by integrating disaster risk reduction into national development planning. The new Cooperation Framework 2026–2030 recognizes that climate change and disaster risk both deepen and are shaped by socioeconomic vulnerability. It positions DRR as a cross-cutting enabler of resilience across sectors, aligned with the Sendai Framework, Cuba’s National Development Plan and the national climate policy, Tarea Vida.

The Cooperation Framework includes a priority area on environmental sustainability, disaster risk reduction and greater resilience, supported by multiple UN entities working together. It applies an intersectional approach to identify groups most at risk of being left behind, including people living in hazard-prone, environmentally degraded or hard-to-reach areas, people in precarious housing or poverty, and coastal communities exposed to sea-level rise.

Under the new Cooperation Framework, IOM, UNFPA and UNICEF are advancing a joint initiative to address social vulnerabilities exacerbated by climate change across the health, education and social protection sectors. The initiative applies a strong leaving-no-one-behind approach, including support to strengthen the inclusion of sexual and reproductive health and gender-based violence prevention in emergency preparedness and response planning, ensuring that the needs of women and girls are addressed throughout the disaster risk management cycle.

The Cooperation Framework also builds on previous joint work to strengthen risk data, risk governance and preparedness. In 2025, UNDRR and WFP strengthened collaboration with Cuba’s Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment on risk data and analysis, integrated risk governance and loss and damage data systems, including through DELTA Resilience and the Santiago Network. UNDRR and UNFPA also supported the development of multi-hazard risk analysis integrating demographic data from national census sources, enabling a more detailed understanding of exposure and differentiated impacts across population groups.

At the same time, joint work by UNDRR, WMO and WFP is supporting a shift from hazard-based forecasting to risk-informed and impact-based forecasting, including stronger data governance, interoperability and use of Earth observation data. Complementary efforts by IOM, UNDP, UNDRR, UNFPA, UNICEF and WFP are linking risk knowledge to sectoral priorities, including resilient infrastructure and governance, education and safe schools, anticipatory action and food systems.

Cuba’s experience demonstrates how strong national systems, anticipatory action, risk-informed planning and inclusive approaches can reduce disaster impacts while addressing the social vulnerabilities that drive risk. Looking ahead, strengthening humanitarian-development integration and advancing anticipatory action will be essential to ensure more sustainable, resilient and inclusive outcomes.