Storm Daniel hit the eastern coastal zones of Libya in September 2023, wreaking havoc with heavy rains and fierce winds. On September 11, two dams failed, inundating the river plain and flooding Derna, a city of approximately 120,000 people. According to the United Nations, the disaster affected 250,000 people, approximately one-third of them children.

With the support of GFDRR, the World Bank launched a Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment (RDNA) designed to estimate the impact of the disaster on physical assets and service delivery in the most-affected areas and determine recovery needs.

Given the protracted conflict and more than a decade of political instability, the technical team conducting the RDNA faced tremendous complexities in assessing the disaster’s impact amid continued political divisions. The floods occurred during increasing tensions between the Government of National Unity in Tripoli and the competing administration in Benghazi, which controls the disaster-stricken eastern territories, with parallel attempts to collect damage and needs data. The scarcity of reliable ground damage data challenged the RDNA process, which was mitigated by developing a tailored approach to addressing the compounded risks that the floods created and the fragile and conflict-afflicted prior conditions exacerbated.

An international firm was contracted to assess the extent and degree of damage across sectors remotely and to verify recovery and reconstruction unit costs through different sources. The firm primarily collected and triangulated data through remote sensing, anonymized cellular data, and social media sources. This approach helped obtain damage and needs data from neutral technical actors employing internationally applied rapid remote assessment tools. The team also sought to collaborate with UN agencies and EU partners to triangulate, corroborate, and enrich the assessment with complementary data and analysis.

Considering the unique context of Libya, the methodology was used to apply a cross-cutting fragility, conflict, and violence (FCV) lens to the damage and needs assessment process—such as in terms of assessing the structural drivers and proximate causes of the conflict, particularly including the compounded impacts and new risks that the disaster–conflict nexus created. This approach provided the analytical framework to assess the governance- and social cohesion–related risks and opportunities that the disaster created to convert the adversity into an opportunity for building back smarter, strengthening the social contract and informing timely recovery resource mobilization and evidence-based recovery planning and its subsequent implementation.

The Libya RDNA builds on extensive stakeholder engagement— including the affected municipalities, central government agencies, civil society organizations, and development partners— particularly for the triangulation and validation of disaster impact data, harmonizing recovery strategies across sectors; bringing in local actors; and helping build a conflict-sensitive narrative, analytical framework, and terminology.

Despite the challenging political environment, the team has helped chart a course for the government of Libya by drawing on consultations with relevant stakeholders, from both the west and east of the country, and providing a robust analysis of disasterinduced damages, losses, and needs across nearly all sectors of the economy. The delivery of the RDNA is an opportunity for Libyan stakeholders to catalyze efforts for efficient, resilient, sustainable recovery of the flood-affected communities.