Event Summary
Organization: World Bank Group
Session Leads
- Abigail Baca, EAP DRM
- Michael Bonte, EAP DRM
- Niels Holm-Nielsen, LCR DRM
- Tiguist Fisseha, LCR DRM
- Benedikt Signer, DRFIP
Description
Many small states share a unique development challenge: a single disaster event could cause damages and losses that could exceed the entire value of the country’s annual economic activity. This presents an extreme risk to national development and can only be addressed through a long-term comprehensive risk management process that builds financial resilience through a combination of financial instruments, improved financial administrative systems, and better investment in physical resilience to reduce contingent liabilities. Ministries of Finance are in a unique position to lead this process, in close collaboration with Ministries of Public Works and other key planning agencies. Small island developing states (SIDS) in the Caribbean and Pacific have invested in large scale risk assessments to enable evidence based decisions. Such quantitative risk assessments can inform, for example, the development of disaster funds, sovereign risk transfer and risk pooling schemes; the design and location of infrastructure and public building; and regulatory frameworks for resilient private sector development – all of which are elements that contribute to a longer term disaster risk management strategy. This session will share experiences from the Caribbean, the Pacific, and the Indian Ocean Islands in generating disaster risk information to make informed decisions on the financial management of disasters, and building on this information to support other uses such as risk sensitive territorial planning and resilient infrastructure development. (Session links to 3rd July workshop on the same topic).
With the financial support of Africa Caribbean Pacific – European Union Natural Disaster Risk Reduction Program
Session Chair: Honorable Ralph John Regenvanu, Minister for Lands and Natural Resources, Republic of Vanuatu