Caribbean Urban Forum 2026

On the Frontlines: Rethinking Resilience & Recovery in the Caribbean.

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Conference Overview

Welcome to the CUF 2026

The Caribbean Urban Forum (CUF) is an international conference on urban planning and development, land management and other spatial planning topics focussed specifically on the Caribbean region. Since 2011, CUF has been hosted by various Caribbean cities and has become the main opportunity for urban practitioners to share experience and knowledge through regional dialogues.

CUF 2026 is a collaboration between the University of Technology, Jamaica, The Kingston and St. Andrew Municipal Corporation, Island City Lab and blueSpace Caribbean. This 15th Annual Caribbean Urban Forum will be held from June 17th – 19th 2026. The 2026 theme On the Frontlines: Rethinking Resilience and Recovery in the Caribbean aims to spur reflection on the region’s experiences with disasters and crises and advance a more critical and resilience-based approach.

Conference Theme

With more frequent, intense and varied disasters, resilience has to be proactive and holistic considering not just built and engineered intrastructures but also social infrastructures of communities and local actors. Disasters unearth and amplify longstanding inequities around land distribution, critical utilities and the processes that inform how people build, obtain and retrofit their homes. Equally concerning is the impact these cycles of disaster and recovery have on the operations of local governments, and public institutions who are usually the first line of disaster response.

Location

TBD, Kingston, Jamaica

Call for Abstracts

Social Infrastructures

In the critical first few days following the passage of Hurricane Melissa, formal and state emergency services were overwhelmed, delayed and unprepared for the level of devastation. Social networks of families, communities, churches, diaspora groups and civic actors quickly organized themselves to provide lifesaving resources for marooned and devastated parts of the island. This themes asks:
How do we support/encourage decentralized community-based emergency management groups to tackle immediate disaster response?
What is the role of civic actors in the communication of disaster risk, deployment of aid, provision of shelter and post-disaster reconstruction? How do local community actors communicate needs through a bureaucratic state system?
What is the role of the state in coordinating and supporting these local community actors towards more efficient disaster response?
How can public spaces, markets, schools, churches and community centers facilitate emergency management and response in an efficient and equitable way?

The Business of Cities

Whether national or municipal, budgets are always a statement of values. They demonstrate who/what we care about and who/what we consider sacrificial. With COP30 failing to secure sufficient adaptation financing for the region, what are the avenues for disaster-prone cities of the Caribbean? With our existing resources, how do we reimagine the exercise of budgeting to meet the need for resilient communities, infrastructure and public institutions within an era of multiple and diverse crises? This theme asks:
What is a unified approach to climate reparations and other adaptation funding mechanisms?
How do we assess the pros and cons of different adaptation infrastructure, especially considering factors like cost, maintenance burdens, etc? How are local governments capitalized to be the first-line of the state’s response to disasters?
How can cities facilitate more citizen involvement in the budgeting process (i.e. participatory budgeting)? What are the appropriate climate financial products to address damage and loss at the individual, community and city levels?

Housing, Shelter & Settlement

More than 150,000 homes across Jamaica were damaged due to Hurricane Melissa. Families' ability to rebuild is dependent not just on technical factors like the level of damage and the materiality but also on socio-political factors like land tenure and household income. In Westmoreland, one of the hardest hit parishes, an estimated 60% of homes are built out of wood - signalling an insecure relationship to the land based on a chronic lack of land security and land reform. This theme asks:
How does land tenure impact a community's ability to recover and rebuild?
What are reasonable and affordable building standards for non-concrete homes in the Caribbean?
How do we consider immediate disaster shelter solutions (tents, prefab homes, etc) for the Caribbean context?
How can homes be affordably retrofitted to manage environmental and climatic risks?
How can construction and technical guidance be given to communities so they can lead the rebuilding of their own homes?

Disaster Planning Continuum

Within the five days prior to the passage of Hurricane Maria, Cuba was able to evacuate more than 700,000 persons resulting in 0 deaths. Jamaica’s system of emergency evacuation failed, with people unaware or underappreciating the risks and or lacking faith in the shelter system to protect them. However diverse the reasons, 45 lives were lost. Disaster and climate planning in the era of climate collapse in the Caribbean is never linear, it is a continuum cycling from preparedness to immediate response, to long term recovery- over and over again. This theme asks:
How can state actors more effectively communicate disaster information to the public?
How do state agencies share data, risk assessments before, during and after a disaster?
How can and should the field of emergency management inform long-term planning and infrastructure development decisions?
How do state actors practice emergency protocols before the disaster hits?
How are emergency shelters designed, operated and maintained to be a safe haven during disasters?

Protective Infrastructures

Each successive hurricane has been followed by announcements of “Build back better” or “ Build back smarter”. But with a clear understanding that our built and engineered infrastructural systems are not meeting the needs of this new climate reality perhaps we need to ask whether these hardened defenses need to be reimagined and retrofitted? How do we adapt drainage, mobility and waste infrastructures built decades ago to meet the needs of a more dense population exposed to more extreme environmental conditions? This theme asks:
What are the small to medium scale green infrastructures that can aggregate towards more resilient communities?
How can municipal scale green infrastructure better manage stormwater management?
What is the role of urban planning in land use and the siting of various infrastructures?

Reimagining SIDS Caribbean Development Futures

Caribbean Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are confronting overlapping crises of climate change, economic precarity, social inequality, and institutional strain. These realities demand a rethinking of development beyond inherited models that prioritize short-term recovery, external solutions, and narrow economic metrics. This theme creates space for interdisciplinary, creative, and speculative approaches that explore alternative Caribbean development futures, ones that are climate-responsive, culturally grounded, socially just, and attentive to the interconnectedness of urban and rural systems. This theme asks:
What alternative development models and futures-thinking approaches are emerging from Caribbean and Global South contexts?
How can urban and rural development be planned as interdependent systems that strengthen resilience, livelihoods, and food security?
What roles do culture, creativity, storytelling, and collective memory play in shaping how Caribbean societies imagine and pursue resilient futures?
How can indigenous, vernacular, and community-based knowledge systems inform planning, adaptation, and development practice?
How can education, youth leadership, technology, and innovation ecosystems be mobilized to support long-term, inclusive development in Caribbean SIDS?

Call for Papers BUTTON

SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS

All submissions require an original abstract (must not have been submitted to other conferences/ publications) with a maximum of 300 words.

The abstract should (a) state the problem being addressed; (b) describe the activities in the work that have addressed the problem and (c) the relevance of the paper/poster/workshop to the theme and/or sub-theme.

Submissions are invited under the following formats: