The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency is a regional inter-governmental agency established in September 1991 by an Agreement of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to be responsible for disaster management. Currently, sixteen states are participating to CDERA.
CDERA's main function is to make an immediate and coordinated response to any disastrous event affecting any Participating State, once the state requests such assistance.
There are also other functions such as:  providing a reliable information network; taking mitigation measures; establishing and maintaining disaster response capabilities; mobilizing and coordinating disaster relief from all organizations for affected Participating States. Besides the many common features CDERA has with other disaster agencies, I will try to focus on the differences.
CDERA has divided the 16 states into 4 sub-regions with a focal point each. These latter are responsible of coordination for the sub-region. Basically, all states in the region can join CDERA but they have to fulfill some pre-defined requirements such as developing a national disaster organization, develop response and emergency shelter plans, and national agencies delineation, etc. In return, it can provide assistance for relief supplies, emergency communications facilities, emergency management personnel and financial assistance.
For CDERA to take action, the Participating State has to make a request and determine that the situation is beyond its national capability. Then CDERA come into play and coordinate the assistance from other states and especially the focal point due to its proximity and similarities with the affected one. The level of regional response is defined in three levels, with each a different involvement degree, depending on the severity of the event.
Beside its primary function of disaster response, CDERA carries activities in all aspects of the disaster management cycle. Different that the FEMA one, it is defined as: prevention-mitigation-preparedness-response-recovery-rebuilding. More about activities can be found in their website.
The partners of CDERA are the regional response organizations, the national disaster organizations, the donor agencies, specialized technical agencies, NGOs and private sector, and other resource agencies.
CDERA’s work program for 2001-2004 is mainly focused on the integration of disaster management agenda with those of the environment and sustainable development. Funding from multi-national Financial Institutions have made possible strong alliances at the decision-making level and increased the focus on CDERA.
Some of the current projects and their funding agencies are:
-    “Enhancing Flood Disaster Preparedness in the Caribbean” (US$422,400 through ECHO)
-    Caribbean Hazard Mitigation Capacity Building Program (CND$ 2.3 million through the Canadian International Development Agency). Caribbean Disaster Management Project (US$ 3 million through the government of Japan)
-    Strengthening of the Urban Search and Rescue Capabilities (US$ 3 million through the government of Japan with the UNDP)
-    Technical Assistance for Search and Rescue Capacities Building in CDERA Participating States (US$ 274,800 through US Southern Command and USAID)
-    Comprehensive Approach for Disaster Management in the Caribbean (US$ 210,000 through USAID and UNDP)

More information about CDERA, the projects and their status is available at:
http://www.cdera.org