GFDRR implements the majority of its program through the World Bank in partnership with national, regional, and other international agencies. Activities financed must: (i) respond to a request from a vulnerable country; (ii) contribute to the goal of the Sendai Framework; (iii) ensure technical soundness in their design; and / or (iv) demonstrate high potential for impact either because they inform development financing or support policy change.

Click on one of the regions below to learn more about our engagement there.

Map showing where GFDRR works

Where we work

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Africa

Africa faces a fundamental challenge of minimal availability of data on climate and weather risks, which is essential to achieving resilience. Gathering, analyzing, and communicating risk information, with a focus on hydromet, is therefore important in the region. In addition, building government capacity is critical for public officials to be able to glean the greatest value from the information once they have it in hand. Post- disaster needs assessments (PDNAs) continue to remain key to mobilizing financing and engaging larger programs for disaster risk management (DRM).

Africa at-a-glance
Development finance informed
$169m
More than 23 countries engaged

Gathering, analyzing, and communicating risk information

Generating and communicating risk information has been central to GFDRR’s engagements in Africa. In FY16, as a follow-up to the Southwest Indian Ocean Risk Assessment and Financing Initiative (SWIO RAFI), GFDRR provided $3.5 million for the development of risk assessments in Ethiopia, Kenya, Niger, Senegal, and Uganda, with assessments underway in Cabo Verde, Malawi, Mali, and Mozambique. GFDRR financing is expected to support a total of 15 country risk profiles, which will inform national disaster risk financing strategies for these countries.

Hydromet is a key priority for the region

In partnership with the African Development Bank and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the World Bank and GFDRR launched the Africa Hydromet Program with the goal of modernizing hydromet services and promoting collaboration across borders. Subsequently, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), World Food Program (WFP), and Agence Française de Développement (AFD), have also joined the partnership. Working nationally and regionally, the initiative aims to raise up to $600 million in funding to modernize, build, monitor, and forecast technologies that can generate weather information. In Mali, for example, GFDRR helped secure $22.75 million from the Green Climate Fund and assisted in mobilizing approximately $10 million in related investments in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Building capacity for better-informed policies

Building capacity to better plan for natural disasters is a priority for GFDRR and its partners in Africa. As of FY16, an Africa Caribbean and Pacific-European Union Natural Disaster Risk Reduction (ACP-EU NDRR) financed program in Tanzania trained over 130 government officials, which helped improve their capacity to manage disaster resilience initiatives. This engagement, which came to a close in FY16, benefited over 2,500 people from 433 households as a result of better access to drought-resistant seeds, tools, and knowledge, and provided better access to drinking water to over 8,000 people. As part of this work, 100 women’s groups were able to strengthen their food security against climate variability and shocks. Today, local communities are far better able to identify, address, and cope with risks.

Enabling development investments

DRM projects in Africa have helped mobilize additional development investments. After the 2015 floods in Mozambique, GFDRR provided financial and technical support for a rapid assessment of disaster impacts and recovery needs. This assessment identified recovery and reconstruction needs and justified the mobilization of $40 million for a resilient recovery project. This project is now supporting reconstruction of dikes, irrigation, and drinking water supply infrastructure, as well as education infrastructure. GFDRR’s financial assistance is complementing the work of this project for recovery planning at the national level.

Going forward

The World Bank and GFDRR supported the development of a strategic framework 2016-2020: “Strengthening Climate and Disaster Resilience in Sub-Saharan Africa” which outlines future engagements and systematic investments in long-term DRM, including enhancing knowledge and fostering partnerships.

In Focus Understanding Risk and Finance (UR&f)

The Understanding Risk and Finance conference (UR&f), held in Ethiopia on November 17–20, 2015, is a best- practice example of GFDRR’s commitment to innovation, diverse perspectives, and multi-disciplinary approaches to delivering solutions for clients. GFDRR worked in close collaboration with several teams within the World Bank, the African Union Commission, the Government of Ethiopia, and the EU, a partnership that was essential to the success of this event.

The event attracted 450 participants and a wide range of African partners including the African Development Bank, Addis Ababa University, African Risk Capacity, and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR), along with 20 additional organizations, including private sector firms and insurance companies. Out of 95 speakers in total, 65 percent were from the region and 33 percent were women. The following on social media was strong, with over 950 tweets which reached 34,000 impressions. The UR&f conference also conducted several half-day training courses at the event. A total of 230 participants were trained through 16 sessions.

The conference also launched the EU-financed Africa Disaster Risk Financing (ADRF) initiative. The ADRF, a five-year initiative funded by the EU, aims to (i) strengthen the capacity to generate, access, and use information on disaster risk, (ii) enhance capacities to incorporate disaster and climate risk information in decision-making, (iii) develop strategies to increase financial resilience, and (iv) facilitate sharing of knowledge and best practices.

UR&f served as a platform for African policy makers and technical experts to discuss strategies for quantifying and managing financial risk at regional, national and local levels, including those associated with natural hazards and climate change.

East Asia and Pacific

East Asia and Pacific (EAP) faces a variety of hazards, with countries that have different capacities and institutional arrangements to mitigate, prepare for, and respond to disasters. To help countries address these challenges, GFDRR works alongside the World Bank and government counterparts to provide customized solutions that take into consideration countries’ unique economic and operational context.

EAP at-a-glance
Development finance informed
$760m
More than 18 countries engaged

Mobilizing additional financing from different financial instruments

In Myanmar, following the devastating floods and landslides in 2015, which affected over 1.6 million people, the World Bank and GFDRR, together with partners, supported the Government of Myanmar in conducting a PDNA. Building on the PDNA and the financial resources provided by GFDRR, a $200 million Myanmar Floods and Landslides Emergency Recovery Project was approved. Of the $200 million, $100 million will be financed from International Development Association (IDA) allocations and $100 million from the IDA Crisis Response Window, a World Bank instrument that provides additional resources for severe economic crises and major natural disasters. An additional $32 million was approved from the Immediate Response Mechanism (IRM), which allows IDA countries to access a portion of the undisbursed lending portfolio for recovery and reconstruction in the transport and agricultural sectors.

Consolidating engagements within the region for greater impact

Consolidating existing engagements helps to improve coordination and increase scale and impact of DRM interventions. To that end, in FY16, GFDRR facilitated the preparation of the Pacific Resilience Program (PREP), a regional operation intended to strengthen early warning and preparedness, enhance public infrastructure, and improve post-disaster response capacity of participating countries. Four countries participated in the program’s first phase, including the Republic of Marshall Islands, Samoa, Tonga, and Vanuatu; while Fiji, Federal States of Micronesia, and the Solomon Islands are expected to join in the future. The fi t phase leveraged $45 million to build better preparedness systems in the region.

Advancing engagement through innovative measures and good practice

GFDRR’s support has helped bring innovative approaches and good practices to operational engagements at the sub-regional level, particularly in disaster risk financing and flood risk management. Cambodia, Lao PDR, and Myanmar face high disaster risks, particularly flooding. Technical assistance is ongoing to help identify risk reduction investments across the three countries, as well as strengthen regional coordination on financial protection. One such effort is support for the Southeast Asia Disaster Resilience Insurance Fund to provide participating governments with immediate financial resources to support response and early recovery. With GFDRR’s support, a draft legal hydro-meteorological framework was prepared in Lao PDR. Drawing on international good practice and standards as well as extensive stakeholder consultations, the law will help guide modernization and upgrading of Lao PDR’s hydromet and early warning systems.

Going forward

GFDRR will continue to build on its existing engagements in the region. In addition to ongoing efforts, GFDRR will support knowledge transfer on emerging topics such as coastal resilience, resilient cultural heritage, and urban resilience and flood risk management.

In Focus Philippines builds a comprehensive disaster risk management program

Since 1990, the Philippines has been affected by 565 natural disaster events, claiming nearly 70,000 lives and an estimated $23 billion in damages. Comprehensive DRM legislation in 2010 positioned the Philippines as the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to secure a $500 million DRM Development Policy Loan (DPL) with a Catastrophe Deferred Drawdown Option (Cat-DDO), which provides immediate access to recovery funding after a disaster. In December 2015, the Philippines secured a second DRM DPL with a Cat-DDO, providing access to another emergency credit line of $500 million.

GFDRR has been engaged in the Philippines since 2009, supporting coordination efforts among various partners —including the Asian Development Bank, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the government of Japan, and the UK Department for International Development to support the Philippines to scale up its engagement in DRM. This has resulted in increasing efforts to mainstream disaster resilience, strengthen ex-ante planning and risk reduction interventions, and develop a comprehensive disaster risk financing strategy, which have delivered an effective platform of tools to strengthen risk- informed investment planning and regulations.

Building on the results achieved to date, GFDRR is now supporting a broader agenda of risk across different sectors. Working with the Department of Public Works and Highways, for example, DRM standards will be integrated into the first revision of the Philippines’ National Building Code; engaging with the Department of Tourism to address risk reduction for cultural heritage assets and with the Department of Education to develop retrofitting solutions for at-risk schools in metro Manila; and supporting the Department of Finance to implement a comprehensive protection strategy. These efforts will help the Philippines address disaster risks in the medium and long-term, and advance its commitment to the Sendai Framework in the years to come.

“The Philippines is among the most vulnerable countries in the world. Together, the 20 most vulnerable countries face escalating losses of $44.9 billion due to climate- related natural disasters alone. Inaction is set to cost us even more. With the number set to multiply almost ten-fold by 2030, amounting to $418 billion, we turn to innovative financing mechanisms to boost our resilience.” —Cesar V. Purisima, Secretary the Philippines Department of Finance (2016)

At the local level, GFDRR funds accelerate implementation of DRM reforms by building technical and institutional capacity. As a result, approximately 90 percent of provinces have now mainstreamed resilience measures into their development plans, which are expected to result in investments that are selected, located, and designed to standards minimizing the vulnerability of communities. A joint disaster resilience insurance facility is also being set up by local governments to provide immediate payouts to provinces after disasters, improving the financial response capacity at the local level.

Europe and Central Asia

Recent events such as the flooding in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, and Tajikistan have made government officials throughout the region keenly aware of the need to invest in building a more stable future. To that end, with GFDRR’s support, countries are putting in place building blocks for comprehensive DRM plans, investing in risk analytics, and building institutional capacity. Efforts to integrate risk considerations in ongoing and planned investment processes, for example in the education and transport sectors, are underway.

ECA at-a-glance
Development finance informed
$395m
More than 11 countries engaged

Establishing the building blocks for DRM

Knowledge is an essential building block for a comprehensive approach to DRM. In FY16, GFDRR invested in risk analytics to support countries in building a long-term foundation for investments in resilience, facilitating knowledge exchange throughout the region, and helping to build capacity across all levels of government. GFDRR supported the development of Earthquakes and Floods risk profiles, which improves the country’s understanding of its own risk and vulnerability. This has been done for 32 countries in the region as of FY16. Such information will help inform government officials of existing risk and enable them to make more informed decisions.

The Central Asia Earthquake Risk Reduction Forum held in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in October 2015, convened decision makers from relevant ministries, as well as practitioners from the scientific community from the five Central Asia countries, to share experiences and mobilize support for investments to build resilience. The Forum, as well as other previous and ongoing engagement, encouraged the Republic of Tajikistan and the Kyrgyz Republic to prepare their multi-hazard DRM projects and programs, which could serve as the foundation of countries’ long-term and proactive DRM program.

Integrating risk into ongoing, cross-sector planning efforts

GFDRR’s support to integrate risk into investment decision-making helps countries in the region to save social as well as economic costs by building safer and more resilient infrastructure, lowering losses in the aftermath of disasters. In the Kyrgyz Republic, GFDRR supported a Probabilistic Seismic Risk Assessment to develop a macro-level analysis of the highest risks to settlements, including government assets such as schools and infrastructure. This will help strategize and inform the DRM investment program of the country.

GFDRR also helped update Armenia’s probabilistic seismic hazard map to help determine minimum accepted levels of safety for all buildings in the country, and Armenia is also considering reviewing and updating its seismic code. Vulnerability assessments have been conducted for roads in central areas, often inhabited by tourists and cultural heritage buildings, to prioritize and inform the design of investments targeting regional tourism.

Going forward

Based on agreements in the Central Asia Earthquake Risk Reduction Forum, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have requested GFDRR support to develop projects that help reduce their risk—with a focus on infrastructure and transportation. GFDRR’s regional support to strengthen risk assessments will benefit National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) of all Central Asian countries, enhancing quality and delivery of information—to help countries better prepare and plan for disasters.

In Focus Serbia's efforts to build disaster resilience set an example for its neighbors

Over the last 15 years, Serbia has been affected by recurrent floods and landslides, most recently in 2014. Floods in 2014 imposed large financial costs, totaling nearly $1.5 billion in recovery needs, contributing to the onset of a recession. While the energy and agriculture sectors were especially impacted, the flood protection infrastructure suffered as well, leaving the country more exposed to subsequent flooding. Following the 2014 floods, GFDRR provided resources to the government to establish the National Disaster Risk Management Program (NDRMP).

The NDRMP is the first national plan that aims to protect Serbia’s development by reducing the existing risk, avoiding new risk, and responding more efficiently to disasters. It creates a common platform for managing risks associated with various types of disasters by identifying potential hazard risks and reducing them in the long term. The NDRMP also allows various stakeholders to coordinate DRM efforts in order to avoid replication of similar activities.

In FY16, Serbia developed a new legal framework for DRM with the intention of being the fi t country in the world to fully align its legislation with the Sendai Framework. GFDRR and the World Bank have provided guidance to the Serbian government in drafting the legislation, which provides the legal basis for the implementation of the NDRMP. Its implementation is currently funded by the European Union, the United Nations, Switzerland, Austria, GFDRR, and the World Bank.

“With the National Disaster Risk Management program, Serbia is moving from a response-focused approach to disasters to a more proactive risk reduction way of securing the country’s sustainable development.” —Marko Blagojevic, Director of the Public Investment Management Office

GFDRR’s technical assistance in Serbia focuses on building government capacity in sectors such as water, agriculture, and environment, which is essential to the success of the NDRMP. As part of this, GFDRR, the World Bank, and the EU have agreed to provide financial and technical support to the Ministry of Agriculture and Environmental Protection in developing high resolution flood risk maps, which will be integrated in the Serbian National Water Information System. This financial and technical support will also aim at rehabilitating and improving the hydro-meteorological monitoring network which was damaged during the 2014 floods.

Additionally, the Serbian government has significantly enhanced its fiscal resilience. A comprehensive financial protection strategy was developed, with potential for a Catastrophe Deferred Drawdown Option (Cat-DDO), providing up to $100 million in rapid liquidity in the event of disaster. Furthermore, after the floods in March 2016, GFDRR provided post disaster needs assessment training, after which, new funds are being identified to support the Serbian government to update the current damage assessment methodology and align it with GFDRR’s Disaster Recovery Framework.

Latin America and the Caribbean

With the evolution of DRM in the region, GFDRR has adapted its assistance to respond to its changing needs. In GFDRR’s earlier years of operation, it supported country needs by providing assistance to build early warning systems and emergency operations centers. Over the past few years, the demand for sophisticated solutions in the region has progressed, with requests for advanced risk assessments and modeling to inform policy and investment decision-making, with a focus on integration of risk management principles into development planning.

LAC at-a-glance
Development finance informed
$323m
More than 22 countries engaged

Implementing sophisticated financial solutions

Since 2007, GFDRR has helped countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) create risk financing mechanisms and take advantage of still more sophisticated risk financing instruments. In the last two years, the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF), which pools risk among 16 countries to provide rapid liquidity in the wake of an earthquake, heavy rainfall, or a hurricane, has been expanded to offer coverage for seven additional LAC countries. In 2015, Nicaragua became the first Central American country to join the CCRIF, purchasing coverage against earthquake and cyclone damage.

Countries within the region are also increasingly working together to better identify solutions for managing disaster- related financial losses. For instance, knowledge generated in Mexico related to risk layering strategies is being applied in Belize, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guatemala, Haiti, and Saint Lucia.

Planning for a safer and more resilient future

The Peruvian Ministry of Education (MINEDU), with technical assistance from GFDRR, evaluated the physical condition of approximately 50,000 public schools and assessed seismic risk of 2,000 schools in Lima. In 2015, these results informed Plan Lima, a short-term national strategy to reduce critical risk in school infrastructure in Peru. In the first phase, 373 school facilities received an investment of $20 million, benefitting 278,000 students. MINEDU is also leading the formulation of a national school infrastructure plan to guide investments strategically. With GFDRR’s financial support, a countrywide risk assessment will inform a structural retrofitting program, directly benefiting 2.5 million students.

Increasingly, cities in LAC are requesting support from the World Bank to strengthen resilience to natural hazards. To meet this demand, the World Bank is helping to integrate risk management into financing and technical assistance in city level investment and territorial planning—for instance, in Guatemala. In addition, cities like Medellin, Porto Alegre, and Mexico City have asked for World Bank and GFDRR assistance to explore options for transferring some of its catastrophe risk to capital markets.

Financed by the ACP-EU NDRR window, the Caribbean Risk Information Program has strengthened the quality of national data on hazards for Belize, Grenada, Dominica, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. In FY16, the Program published the Handbook for Risk Information Management (CHaRIM), which will enable risk- information on landslides and flood hazard to inform infrastructure projects across the region.

Going forward

In the region, demand for integration of resilience across sectors is increasing at the city level. Efforts will also assist cities to increase revenue from land value captured from successful disaster risk reduction (DRR) investments—something currently being explored in Buenos Aires—or through issuing bonds, which are under consideration in select cities in Brazil, Mexico, and Peru.

In Focus Financing instruments in Ecuador readily respond to a variety of disasters

Approximately 96 percent of Ecuador’s population lives in areas exposed to seismic, volcanic, flood, landslide, and El Niño hazards. In 2008, the country transitioned from emergency response and management to risk-integrated territorial and sectoral planning. As a result, Ecuador now has a stronger national DRM system, led by the National Secretariat of Disaster Risk Management, and integrated into activities of the Autonomous Decentralized Governments, which are provincial governance bodies, also equipped with scientific and technical capacity in hydrometeorology and seismic and oceanographic monitoring. This robust science-policy interaction has allowed experts to inform and develop policy decisions on DRM.

In FY16, assistance from GFDRR led to the development of a $150 million risk mitigation and emergency recovery project financed by the World Bank, to help the country prepare for rapid response to contingencies and the reconstruction process. This World Bank project has two major components: (i) ex-ante disaster preparation and risk mitigation; and (ii) post-disaster recovery and reconstruction.

Although the project was initially designed for the anticipated impacts of the El Niño phenomenon and a possible eruption of the Cotopaxi volcano, the latter component included an innovative trigger to allow for the rapid access of funds after defined national disaster alerts are issued. This was activated following El Niño-related heavy rains as well as floods and landslides.

“To mitigate the impact on public finances and as part of its fiscal strategy to confront the possible natural events against which it is subjected, Ecuador negotiated a loan with the World Bank in the amount of $150 million for the Risk Mitigation and Emergency Recovery Project (ERL). The approval of the ERL by the World Bank was done in record time and allows us to deal with natural disasters and above all ensure a timely response to the affected population.” —Luis Eduardo Carrión, Project Coordinator, Ecuador Risk Mitigation and Emergency Recovery Project

In April 2016, a devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck the northwest coast of Ecuador. Availability of this instrument has initially allowed for a programmed response focused on the health and transport sector, with resources earmarked to support the reconstruction of an international airport and the rehabilitation and reconstruction of two hospitals. In addition, financing from GFDRR has also been secured to deepen the integration of DRM in sectoral planning, which includes diagnostic analysis for the national emergency response plan; a strategic approach to develop the national emergency plan; and mainstreaming DRR into other sectors including health, water, agriculture, transport, and public works.

Middle East and North Africa

The Middle East and North Africa (MNA) region is faced with intersecting risks of natural hazards, rapid urban growth, and conflict. Over the past two years the risk landscape of the region has become more complex due to the aggravation of conflict. The resulting influx of refugees and internally displaced populations has increased pressure on natural resources and existing infrastructure. To holistically address the multiple dimensions of risk, GFDRR provides strategic financial and technical support to strengthen resilience by adopting an inclusive and a participatory approach.

MNA at-a-glance
Development finance informed
$200m
More than 5 countries engaged

Integrating risk management as a cross-cutting issue

DRM engagements with local governments have proven to be a key entry point for discussions on building urban resilience in MNA. Lebanon, for example, is a country undergoing extensive urbanization while exposed to a range of severe risks. In the capital city of Beirut, the World Bank, with support from GFDRR, began working with the local government in December 2015 on the development of a comprehensive urban resilience master plan.

In Morocco as well, by engaging the government on DRM, GFDRR is supporting the design of a $200 million project, which will develop an innovative Integrated Disaster Risk Management and Resilience Program. The government implemented its new approach of proactively investing in risk reduction and shared the Morocco experience in the region to improve the application and use of existing disaster risk models.

GFDRR has also provided technical assistance to adapt post-disaster methodologies to post-conflict and in- conflict situations. In Syria, GFDRR led an assessment intended to break silos and bring together a multitude of sector specialists. These specialists verified data, analyzed damage characterization, identified impact on service delivery, and made sector-specific recommendations. A data platform was developed that converts large data sets into easily understandable visuals over the base map of each city. The technique and methodology has been scaled up, with similar assessments underway in Iraq and Yemen.

Women as resilience champions

In an effort to empower women as leaders of the resilience agenda, GFDRR launched the Women for Resilience (W4R) Program. The program, designed as a competition, seeks to increase resilience through investments in women-led enterprises. In September 2015, W4R awarded three female-run initiatives focused on improving resilience in Cairo and Beirut. The W4R winners included:

- HandOver, a social enterprise offering resilient housing in informal settlements in Cairo;
- e-Tobb, a for-profit online platform that links patients to doctors and contributes to the resiliency of the health system in Beirut; and
- Transi.to, a crowd-sourcing mobile app that streamlines the public transportation system in Cairo.

Building on the initial results, the team will scale up activities in the coming year, targeting other MNA cities and fostering the inclusion of other vulnerable groups, especially youth and refugees. The goal is to support the creation of up to 20 resilience-focused medium and small enterprises in three or more countries in the region.

Going forward

A focus going forward is developing and strengthening capacity to understand risk. In addition, it will be important to build institutional frameworks for investments, particularly in risk assessments, early warning systems, urban resilience, and infrastructure. GFDRR support will also help bridge DRM and conflict dimensions, helping to build resilience in fragile settings.

In Focus In Lebanon, risk management paves the way for a larger urban resilience program

Beirut, the highly urbanized economic and political capital of Lebanon, faces an increasing spectrum and severity of risks, ranging from earthquake and tsunami threats, waste management challenges, security incidents such as terrorist attacks, and increasing stress on infrastructure and resources as a result of the influx of refugees from neighboring Syria. Proactively preparing for the future requires the city to comprehensively target this multitude of risks.

In May 2015, GFDRR provided technical and fi assistance that helped start a dialogue on DRM and city resilience. A key outcome of the conversation was a comprehensive urban resilience master plan, a multi- phased technical assistance program, financed by the World Bank and launched on December 9, 2015.

The program includes an assessment of Beirut’s capability to mitigate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from adverse events. Based on this assessment, the city will then develop an integrated, multi-sectoral resilience strategy to reduce vulnerabilities and enhance the delivery and implementation capacity of local agencies and other stakeholders. The plan will also identity potential infrastructure investment opportunities aligned with Beirut’s priority development needs.

GFDRR is bringing global knowledge to this effort by identifying and sharing best practices. For example, based on lessons learned from a similar exercise in Dhaka, Bangladesh, the planning process was designed as highly participatory. A range of government, business and community stakeholders were involved in identifying the key risk and stress factors (both natural and man-made) that currently affect the city. To implement the technical work, GFDRR is working alongside many partners in both the private and public sectors. For example, the international firm Buro Happold Engineering, a global leader in urban planning and infrastructure development, has been actively involved in project implementation.

The work in Beirut is a best-practice-in-the-making; it is a prime example of GFDRR’s technical assistance generating and leveraging World Bank lending in a fragile context, and advancing city resilience.

South Asia

In South Asia, countries are faced with a variety of natural hazards—from floods to earthquakes and cyclones—while at the same time addressing additional risks such as conflict. To tackle the challenges that these interrelated risks pose, GFDRR has played a pivotal role in the growth of DRM in the region by initiating and maintaining country level dialogue on DRM, and by strengthening engagement between key stakeholders.

SAR at-a-glance
Development finance informed
$1bn
More than 7 countries engaged

Initiating country-level dialogue to scale up engagement

Strengthening weather and climate information is particularly important in South Asia, where cyclones, floods and droughts are pervasive. Regular engagement with government stakeholders in the region, driven by GFDRR financing, has resulted in a call for better hydrometeorological services including development of end-to-end early warning systems.

In FY16, GFDRR’s technical support informed the design of a $150 million project in Bangladesh that will support modernizations of hydromet systems. Furthermore, a new $11 million program financed by the European Union was launched to address issues on hydromet service delivery and focus on enhancing capacity among regional bodies and the national disaster management centers, agencies, or appropriate disaster- focused counterparts of member states of the South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).

Risk assessment continues to inform the design of larger DRM programs within the region. In FY16, GFDRR began supporting a nationwide, multi-hazard and climate risk assessment in Afghanistan. This project is helping to inform the preparation of a $628 million investment project to improve the delivery of core infrastructure and social services through strengthened community development councils. Engagement in this project has resulted in an increased interest by government counterparts to strengthen the country’s capacity to manage disaster risk.

Strengthening engagement between key stakeholders

GFDRR engagements are helping to strengthen multi-stakeholder partnerships across the region. Following the April 2015 earthquake in Nepal, GFDRR and the World Bank supported the national government in developing the post-disaster recovery framework (PDRF) completed in May 2016. The PDRF brought together development partners—including the Asian Development Bank, the Department for International Development, the European Union, JICA, and the UN—raising $4.3 billion, which was informed by the PDNA to promote resilient reconstruction and recovery planning. With support from GFDRR, a national reconstruction authority was set up to take a centralized approach to recovery efforts.

GFDRR has helped bridge several critical knowledge gaps by, for example, facilitating exchange of innovative methodologies on landslide risk management between stakeholders in Japan and India, as well as DRM systems between Peru and Bangladesh.

Going Forward

GFDRR will continue to support the region in improving project design, providing policy advice, mobilizing technical inputs and innovative solutions for planned or ongoing investments, and fostering partnerships between donors. Building on the current progress in knowledge exchange between countries in the region, GFDRR will work to strengthen internal collaboration and engage key stakeholders. The objectives include strengthening investment planning in urban, coastal, and infrastructure resilience; strengthening of government capacity programs; and enabling policies for geo-hazard risk management.

In Focus India invests in protecting its coastal communities

India’s vast geographic and climatic diversity makes it vulnerable to all major natural hazards, particularly to cyclones, with devastating impacts. Beginning with Bhola, which struck the eastern coast of India in 1970, a series of cyclones have regularly beset India’s coastline—most recently, Hudhud, in 2014.

GFDRR has been engaged with the government of India since 2012 to help build the evidence base necessary to scale up support for DRM and help India be better prepared for and recover from cyclones. This engagement has driven two large projects financed by the World Bank—a $359 million National Cyclone Risk Mitigation Project and a $236 million Coastal Disaster Risk Reduction Project, supporting high-risk cyclone prone states in eastern India to better prepare for future disasters.

Through these projects, GFDRR has helped reduce the vulnerability of coastal communities by supporting the development of 270 cyclone shelters, 87 in FY16 alone. These facilities are developed with multiple uses, providing shelter in the event of a disaster, to over 280,000 people living on the coast. GFDRR supported the incorporation of community inputs in the design of the multi-purpose shelter and also the development of programs to train communities to manage the shelters.

“Community-Based Disaster Risk Management is a process through which the entire society within each habitation is being prepared to face disasters and it will reap huge benefits in the future.” —Gagandeep Singh Bedi, IAS – Secretary to Government, Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department, Tamil Nadu

In FY16, GFDRR contributed to ongoing efforts to modernize early warning systems to ensure last-mile connectivity of rural and remote villages. A total of 1,740 villages will benefit from warnings customized by the state and district emergency centers. These will reach a much broader audience as they are broadcast through public address systems in coastal villages, through speakers, televisions, and radios. Approximately 2,100 mobile phones with special SIM cards and customized applications will be provided to officials and villagers, allowing local leaders and communities to receive customized warnings. Feedback on these systems will be collected from beneficiaries across all levels to assess and improve effectiveness.

Over the last year, GFDRR also engaged 600 communities to develop hazards, risk, and vulnerability assessments. These assessments have enabled the development of village DRM plans that have information on vulnerable communities and their respective exposure to risk. Communities are now able to activate local disaster management plans and stage appropriate response in close coordination with local authorities.

Informing Development Finance