Publication:
Socioeconomic Analysis of the Potential Benefits of Modernizing Hydrometeorological Services in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Files in English
English PDF (1.05 MB)
631 downloads
English Text (116.28 KB)
51 downloads
Published
2018-06
ISSN
Date
2019-08-07
Editor(s)
Abstract
The Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR) is exposed to significant climate and disaster risks. The country’s rapid economic development can put more people and assets at risk from natural hazards, if investments in risk reduction, planning, and preparedness are not made. The results of this analysis show that the contribution of hydrometeorological information to socioeconomic development in Lao PDR is expected to be very high, particularly due to the potential benefits for the energy and tourism sectors and their contribution to gross domestic product (GDP). The results of this study support the conclusion that hydromet information is critically important for Lao PDR and that investments in the hydromet sector are expected to be highly profitable from socioeconomic perspective.
Link to Data Set
Citation
Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery. 2018. Socioeconomic Analysis of the Potential Benefits of Modernizing Hydrometeorological Services in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/32199 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Report Series
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Publication
    Disaster Risk Reduction and Emergency Management in Armenia
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2009-10) Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery
    This report addresses the fact that natural disasters have caused vast social upheaval and economic damage to Armenia. This ongoing vulnerability to natural disasters has led Armenia to appreciate the advantages of developing a comprehensive strategy to help minimize ensuing fiscal exposure because the national budget will never be adequate to mitigate, respond, and recover from these recurrent but unavoidable crises. Since the Spitak earthquake, Government has reorganized its emergency management system and established many seismic mitigation activities and created a Ministry of Emergency Situations (MoES) and established a cabinet-level Minister responsible for disaster response. Government may wish to build on these achievements. The report is also based on a study carried out in Armenia under the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) project, which analyzed disaster risks, assessed existing systems, mechanisms, and institutional capacities, and made recommendations for developing a comprehensive national disaster reduction and preparedness agenda, which could form the basis for a natural disaster reduction project.
  • Publication
    Understanding Risk in an Evolving World : A Policy Note
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014) Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery
    The foundation for DRM is understanding the hazards, and the exposure and vulnerability of people and assets to those hazards. By quantifying the risks and anticipating the potential impacts of hazards, governments, communities, and individuals can make informed prevention decisions. Such information can be used to set priorities for development and adaptation strategies, sector plans, programs, projects, and budgets.
  • Publication
    Understanding Risk in an Evolving World : Emerging Best Practices in Natural Disaster Risk Assessment
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-10) Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery
    The 10-year-long Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) set out to substantially reduce impacts from natural disasters by 2015. Despite efforts toward this goal, economic losses from natural disasters are rising from US$50 billion each year in the 1980s, to just under $200 billion each year in the last decade (World Bank and GFDRR 2013). The economic losses sustained by lower- and middle-income countries alone over the last 30 years represent a full third of all total development assistance in the same time period, offsetting tremendous efforts by governments, multilateral organizations, and other actors. As the HFA period ends against a backdrop of challenging disaster risk trends, and consultations toward a post-2015 framework move forward, it is important to reflect on the role of disaster risk assessments in achieving disaster and climate resilience, and on the contributions risk assessments have made over the last 10 years. Understanding Risk in an Evolving World: Emerging Best Practices in Natural Disaster Risk Assessment, which was developed to inform post-HFA discussions and the 2015 Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (GAR),1 reports on the current state of the practice of risk assessment and on advances made over the last decade.
  • Publication
    Fiscal Disaster Risk Assessment Options for Consideration
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-06) World Bank Group; Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery
    Pakistan is vulnerable to a number of adverse natural events and has experienced a wide range of disasters over the past 40 years, including floods, earthquakes, droughts, cyclones, and tsunamis. The World Bank is supporting the Government of Pakistan (GoP) in building capacity in the area of disaster risk management (DRM) in order to build resilience from both humanitarian and fiscal shocks associated with natural disasters. The World Bank is providing technical assistance to the GoP for the development of a national disaster risk financing strategy. This non-lending technical assistance aims to: (i) assess the fiscal exposure of the GoP to natural disasters; (ii) present options for the development of a national strategy to improve financial response capacity for natural disasters; and (iii) promote property catastrophe risk insurance for both public and private dwellings. Disaster risk financing and insurance (DRFI) is one of the five pillars in the proactive and strategic framework for DRM promoted by the World Bank. The World Bank has been promoting a proactive and strategic framework for DRM based on five pillars: (i) risk identification; (ii) risk reduction; (iii) preparedness; (iv) financial protection; and (v) resilient recovery. Chapter one is introduction. Chapter two presents an overview of the budget processes for the financing of natural disaster losses during each of the three post-disaster phases. Chapter three provides a preliminary financial disaster risk assessment for Pakistan, focusing particularly on the fiscal impact of natural disasters. Chapter four presents an overview of the private catastrophe insurance market; and chapter five reviews the options for future financing of natural disaster recovery and reconstruction expenditures.
  • Publication
    Solomon Islands
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014-07) Government of Solomon Islands; Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery
    A slow-moving tropical depression caused persistent heavy rains in the Solomon Islands between April 1 and 4, 2014. The highest recorded daily rainfall associated with this event was 318mm in Honiara on April 3. The rains caused flash flooding in Honiara, Guadalcanal, Isabel, Malaita, and Makira-Ulawa. More than 732mm of rain was recorded over four days at the Honiara rain gauge, although heavier rainfall was reported inland. On April 5, as the system moved away from the Solomon Islands, it was upgraded to Tropical Cyclone Ita. The Solomon Islands government has worked with the international community, civil society organizations, and other stakeholders to address humanitarian response needs. The government has sought assistance from Pacific humanitarian team personnel (which is led by the United Nations office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs), and has also requested supplies to support response efforts. The methodology used for assessing the effects of a disaster or extreme event proceeds from the bottom up: information about the effects of the event is captured sector by sector, and the data are aggregated to arrive at the event s total effect on society and the economy. The ultimate goal of the assessment is to measure in monetary and social terms the disaster's impact on the society, economy, and environment of the affected country or region.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

  • Publication
    The Macroeconomic Implications of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Options
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-29) Abalo, Kodzovi; Boehlert, Brent; Bui, Thanh; Burns, Andrew; Castillo, Diego; Chewpreecha, Unnada; Haider, Alexander; Hallegatte, Stephane; Jooste, Charl; McIsaac, Florent; Ruberl, Heather; Smet, Kim; Strzepek, Ken
    Estimating the macroeconomic implications of climate change impacts and adaptation options is a topic of intense research. This paper presents a framework in the World Bank's macrostructural model to assess climate-related damages. This approach has been used in many Country Climate and Development Reports, a World Bank diagnostic that identifies priorities to ensure continued development in spite of climate change and climate policy objectives. The methodology captures a set of impact channels through which climate change affects the economy by (1) connecting a set of biophysical models to the macroeconomic model and (2) exploring a set of development and climate scenarios. The paper summarizes the results for five countries, highlighting the sources and magnitudes of their vulnerability --- with estimated gross domestic product losses in 2050 exceeding 10 percent of gross domestic product in some countries and scenarios, although only a small set of impact channels is included. The paper also presents estimates of the macroeconomic gains from sector-level adaptation interventions, considering their upfront costs and avoided climate impacts and finding significant net gross domestic product gains from adaptation opportunities identified in the Country Climate and Development Reports. Finally, the paper discusses the limits of current modeling approaches, and their complementarity with empirical approaches based on historical data series. The integrated modeling approach proposed in this paper can inform policymakers as they make proactive decisions on climate change adaptation and resilience.
  • Publication
    Design of Partial Population Experiments with an Application to Spillovers in Tax Compliance
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-02-07) Cruces, Guillermo; Tortarolo, Dario; Vazquez-Bare, Gonzalo
    This paper develops a framework to analyze partial population experiments, a generalization of the cluster experimental design where clusters are assigned to different treatment intensities. The framework allows for heterogeneity in cluster sizes and outcome distributions. The paper studies the large-sample behavior of OLS estimators and cluster-robust variance estimators and shows that (i) ignoring cluster heterogeneity may result in severely underpowered experiments and (ii) the cluster-robust variance estimator may be upward-biased when clusters are heterogeneous. The paper derives formulas for power, minimum detectable effects, and optimal cluster assignment probabilities. All the results apply to cluster experiments, a particular case of the framework. The paper sets up a potential outcomes framework to interpret the OLS estimands as causal effects. It implements the methods in a large-scale experiment to estimate the direct and spillover effects of a communication campaign on property tax compliance. The analysis reveals an increase in tax compliance among individuals directly targeted with the mailing, as well as compliance spillovers on untreated individuals in clusters with a high proportion of treated taxpayers.
  • Publication
    The Value of Surface-based Meteorological Observation Data
    (World Bank, Washington, DC, 2021) Kull, Daniel; Riishojgaard, Lars Peter; Eyre, John; Varley, Robert A.
    Weather forecasting generates significant societal benefits, which can be increased by improving accuracy and lead-time through better meteorological monitoring, modeling and computing. Forecasting relies on numerical weather prediction (NWP), which is significantly impacted by the availability of meteorological observations, with space-based observations being the most important. Surface-based observations also contribute substantially to NWP performance, but current availability in Antarctica, Africa, South America, the Pacific and parts of Asia is insufficient. More observations from these regions would improve global NWP and forecasting quality, particularly in the data-sparse regions themselves, but also over the rest of the globe. It is estimated that improvements in the coverage and exchange of surface-based observations to meet the World Meteorological Organization’s Global Basic Observing Network (GBON) specification can deliver additional global socioeconomic benefits of over five billion annually. This is a conservative estimate omitting non-financial benefits such as potential lives saved and improvements to well-being, so underestimates the full benefits, particularly for developing countries. Investing in improving surface-based observations in data sparse regions is also highly economically efficient, yielding a global benefit to cost ratio of over twenty-five. Assuming sufficient observational coverage, international data exchange is a very efficient multiplier of the value of observations. However, exchange is currently insufficient across all regions. In view of the growing climate- and weather-related challenges facing humanity and recognizing that climate services similarly rely on meteorological monitoring, surface-based observations should be treated as a critical public good, with public oversight and open exchange within the meteorological and climatological communities.
  • Publication
    Digital Africa
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13) Begazo, Tania; Dutz, Mark Andrew; Blimpo, Moussa
    All African countries need better and more jobs for their growing populations. "Digital Africa: Technological Transformation for Jobs" shows that broader use of productivity-enhancing, digital technologies by enterprises and households is imperative to generate such jobs, including for lower-skilled people. At the same time, it can support not only countries’ short-term objective of postpandemic economic recovery but also their vision of economic transformation with more inclusive growth. These outcomes are not automatic, however. Mobile internet availability has increased throughout the continent in recent years, but Africa’s uptake gap is the highest in the world. Areas with at least 3G mobile internet service now cover 84 percent of Africa’s population, but only 22 percent uses such services. And the average African business lags in the use of smartphones and computers as well as more sophisticated digital technologies that catalyze further productivity gains. Two issues explain the usage gap: affordability of these new technologies and willingness to use them. For the 40 percent of Africans below the extreme poverty line, mobile data plans alone would cost one-third of their incomes—in addition to the price of access devices, apps, and electricity. Data plans for small- and medium-size businesses are also more expensive than in other regions. Moreover, shortcomings in the quality of internet services—and in the supply of attractive, skills-appropriate apps that promote entrepreneurship and raise earnings—dampen people’s willingness to use them. For those countries already using these technologies, the development payoffs are significant. New empirical studies for this report add to the rapidly growing evidence that mobile internet availability directly raises enterprise productivity, increases jobs, and reduces poverty throughout Africa. To realize these and other benefits more widely, Africa’s countries must implement complementary and mutually reinforcing policies to strengthen both consumers’ ability to pay and willingness to use digital technologies. These interventions must prioritize productive use to generate large numbers of inclusive jobs in a region poised to benefit from a massive, youthful workforce—one projected to become the world’s largest by the end of this century.
  • Publication
    Doing Business 2020
    (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2020) World Bank
    Doing Business 2020 is the 17th in a series of annual studies investigating the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. It provides quantitative indicators covering 12 areas of the business environment in 190 economies. The goal of the Doing Business series is to provide objective data for use by governments in designing sound business regulatory policies and to encourage research on the important dimensions of the regulatory environment for firms.