Blogs

To help track progress towards effective flood risk management, the World Bank, with support from GFDRR, has prepared a Knowledge Note that outlines a ready-to-use method for measuring progress. The method was designed for application in Pacific Island countries, where disastrous floods have occurred in recent years, including Fiji, Samoa, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

Recurrent drought, food insecurity, and famine have become a devastating reality in Somalia in recent decades. Since the end of the 2011 famine, about $4.5 billion has been spent on emergency response to save lives. It was within this context that the Somali Government—with the support of the United Nations (UN), the World Bank and the European Union (EU)—carried out a Drought Impact Needs Assessment of the impact of the 2017 drought on the lives and livelihoods of Somali people.

At the upcoming World Urban Forum, World Bank will focus on three issues that are essential for implementing the New Urban Agenda, which sets a new global standard for sustainable urban development.

Fulmati Mijar, a mother of three living in Nuwakot district in Nepal, learned carpentry and earthquake-resistant techniques for housing reconstruction after a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck Nepal in 2015. The catastrophe destroyed Fulmati’s house and made her family more vulnerable, but it did not dent her resolve.

There are three key ingredients necessary to achieving the goals of the New Urban Agenda: multiple sources of financing, operational definitions, and embracing incremental transformation.

Since 2013, the Government of Uttarakhand, with support from the World Bank and GFDRR, has helped the people of Uttarakhand, India, restore their homes, build better roads, and better manage future disaster risks.

At the One Planet summit, mayors from cities around the world, big and small, will take center stage to discuss how to mobilize the financing needed to accelerate climate action and meet the Paris Agreement goals.

During an All Saints’ Day mass in Lisbon in 1755, an 8.5-magnitude earthquake collapsed cathedrals, triggered a 20-foot tsunami, and sparked devastating fires that destroyed nearly 70% of the city’s 23,000 buildings. In the years to follow, careful studies of the event would give rise to modern seismology. But how is a disaster that occurred centuries ago still relevant today?

The Climate Vulnerability Assessment - Making Fiji Climate Resilient report measures the impact of climate change and includes a clear plan of action of how Fiji can strengthen climate resilience.

Ede Ijjasz-Vasquez, Senior Director of the World Bank’s Social, Urban, Rural and Resilience Global Practice, sits down with Dr. Shazia Siddiqi, Executive Director of Deaf Abused Women’s Network (DAWN) for a conversation on the disability dimension of inclusion and how we should conceive and design cities that are truly inclusive of all, including persons with disabilities.