UNESCO/IOC, UNISDR-Americas Regional unit, OFDA/USAID and the Maritime Authority of Panama, hosted and co-organized a bilingual (Spanish & English) workshop in the framework of Working Group IV – “Preparedness, Readiness and Resilience”, of the Intergovernmental Coordination Group for the Tsunami and Other Coastal Hazards System for the Caribbean and Adjacent Regions (ICG/CARIBE EWS). In short, the workshop addressed a series of fundamental questions on how to build and keep alive at community level, Coastal Early Warning Systems in Central America and the Caribbean. The meeting convoked community preparedness leaders/planners from across the region to share their experiences in developing community-based programs for dealing with coastal hazards, including tsunamis. Therefore there were representatives attending from Caribbean countries such as Barbados, British Virgin Islands, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, Trinidad & Tobago, USA-Puerto Rico, as well as from Colombia, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. Other partners included the UN University (Bonn), U Peace (Costa Rica), IFRC and OCHA regional representatives.