Publication: Boosting Financial Resilience to Disaster Shocks: Good Practices and New Frontiers
Loading...
Published
2019
ISSN
Date
2019-06-14
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Governments face growing contingent liabilities from disasters as they tend to shoulder a significant share of disaster response and recovery costs. Disaster shocks increase government expenditure and hamper economic activities. An increasing number of countries are developing financial protection strategies - a suite of policies and financial instruments - as part of their macro-fiscal policy to secure access to pre-arranged financing and protect the fiscal balance and budget when disasters strike. Investments in physical and social resilience complement and reinforce financial resilience. Pre-arranged risk financing can help governments reduce the fiscal cost of disasters. Sovereign catastrophe risk pools, established to help especially low-capacity countries better access financial markets, are evolving toward multifunctional platforms to strengthen financial resilience in their region. Governments are moving toward adopting more sophisticated risk financing strategies that better match financial instruments to their liabilities, especially for public assets (including infrastructure), national-subnational cost sharing, and social safety nets. New technology and innovations such as Earth Observation Data, Fintech, and big data have the potential to significantly enhance and boost systems for financial resilience against disaster shocks. Development partners continue to play a critical role in helping developing countries improve their financial protection strategies. Recent experiences of G20 countries and others have led to three new frontiers on innovative crisis and disaster risk finance. Although significant progress has been achieved in disaster risk finance, some limitations and challenges remain. All successful reforms start with concrete first steps and an ongoing focus on enhancing fundamental systems and institutions. Financial resilience requires the leadership of ministries of finance in coordination with other public agencies and the private sector. At the request of G20 Finance Track members, this discussion note was prepared to: (i) take stock of the developments in fiscal management of disaster risks within the broader macro-fiscal framework; (ii) highlight recent progress by individual countries and the international community; and (iii) present new frontiers in disaster risk finance.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank Group. 2019. Boosting Financial Resilience to Disaster Shocks: Good Practices and New Frontiers. World Bank Technical Contribution to the 2019 G20 Finance Ministers’ and Central Bank Governors’ Meeting;. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31887 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Fiscal Disaster Risk Assessment Options for Consideration(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-06)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 Assessing the Financial Vulnerability to Climate-Related Natural Hazards(2010-03-01)National governments are key actors in managing the impacts of extreme weather events, yet many highly exposed developing countries -- faced with exhausted tax bases, high levels of indebtedness, and limited donor assistance -- have been unable to raise sufficient and timely capital to replace or repair damaged infrastructure and restore livelihoods after major disasters. Such financial vulnerability hampers development and exacerbates poverty. Based on the record of the past 30 years, this paper finds many developing countries, in particular small island states, to be highly financially vulnerable, and experiencing a resource gap (net disaster losses exceed all available financing sources) for events that occur with a probability of 2 percent or higher. This has three main implications. First, efforts to reduce risk need to be ramped-up to lessen the serious human and financial burdens. Second, contrary to the well-known Arrow-Lind theorem, there is a case for country risk aversion implying that disaster risks faced by some governments cannot be absorbed without major difficulty. Risk aversion entails the ex ante financing of losses and relief expenditure through calamity funds, regional insurance pools, or contingent credit arrangements. Third, financially vulnerable (and generally poor) countries are unlikely to be able to implement pre-disaster risk financing instruments themselves, and thus require technical and financial assistance from the donor community. The cost estimates of financial vulnerability -- based on today's climate -- inform the design of "climate insurance funds" to absorb high levels of sovereign risk and are found to be in the lower billions of dollars annually, which represents a baseline for the incremental costs arising from future climate change.Publication Financial Protection of the State against Natural Disasters : A Primer(2010-09-01)This paper has been prepared for policy makers interested in establishing or strengthening financial strategies to increase the financial response capacity of governments of developing countries in the aftermath of natural disasters, while protecting their long-term fiscal balances. It analyzes various aspects of emergency financing, including the types of instruments available, their relative costs and disbursement speeds, and how these can be combined to provide cost-effective financing for the different phases that follow a disaster. The paper explains why governments are usually better served by retaining most of their natural disaster risk while using risk transfer mechanisms to manage the excess volatility of their budgets or access immediate liquidity after a disaster. Finally, it discusses innovative approaches to disaster risk financing and provides examples of strategies that developing countries have implemented in recent years.Publication Building Morocco's Resilience : Inputs for an Integrated Risk Management Strategy(Washington, DC, 2014-01-30)Top decision makers and governments worldwide are witnessing an accelerating number of major shocks-global financial crises, hyper-volatility in commodity prices, devastating natural disasters, intercontinental pandemics as well as the changing nature of terrorism threats. These shocks, which inflict human suffering and major social, economic and political disruption, are fundamentally changing how governments view the importance of good risk management and the need to strengthen national resilience. As a consequence, risk management has evolved from being a technical issue to a strategic consideration. This report is input for the government of Morocco's development of an integrated risk management strategy. Developing and adopting a national strategy for integrated risk management (IRM) will make Morocco not only better prepared to avoid future crises, and more reactive and resilient if and when they occur, but also helps the government make more informed decisions on resource allocation and prioritization.Publication Evaluating Sovereign Disaster Risk Finance Strategies(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-06)This paper proposes a framework for ex ante evaluation of sovereign disaster risk finance instruments available to governments for funding disaster losses. The framework can be used by governments to help choose between different financial instruments, or between different combinations of instruments, to achieve appropriate and financially efficient strategies to fund disaster losses, taking into account the risk of disasters, economic conditions, and political constraints. The paper discusses the framework in the context of a hypothetical country, with parameters selected to represent a disaster-prone small island state. The paper shows how a mix of instruments can be chosen to minimize the economic opportunity cost given the underlying disaster risk faced and prevailing economic and financial conditions.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Hidden Debt(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2021-06-29)The COVID-19 crisis, which has sent economies in South Asia and around the world into a deep recession, has highlighted South Asia’s rising debt levels and sizable hidden liabilities. State-owned enterprises, state-owned commercial banks, and public-private partnerships have been at the center of the rising debt wave and the latest pandemic response. Historically, South Asia has relied on these direct public interventions more than other regions. The interventions have helped governments tackle key development challenges and rapidly deliver relief measures during crises. However, because of their inefficiencies and weak governance, the interventions are also a significant source of public indebtedness and macrofinancial risks. Hidden Debt examines the trade-off between tackling development challenges through direct state presence in the market and avoiding unsustainable debt due to economic inefficiencies of such off–balance sheet operations, which greatly leverage public capital. The study recommends a reform agenda based on the four interrelated principles of purpose, incentives, transparency, and accountability (PITA). The reforms can mitigate the risks that off–balance sheet operations will become the source of the next financial crisis in South Asia.Publication Institutional Arrangements for Public Debt Management(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2003-04)This paper analyzes institutional arrangements for public debt management by reviewing the experience of OECD countries during the late 1980s and 1990s. It discusses principal-agent issues arising from the delegation of authority from the Minister of Finance to the debt management office and describes how countries have designed governance structures and control and monitoring mechanisms to deal with these issues. The paper also discusses what lessons emerging market countries and transition countries can draw from the experience of advanced OECD countries. The OECD experience clearly indicates that-regardless of whether the debt management office is located inside or outside the Ministry of Finance-four issues are of vital importance: 1) Giving priority to strategic public policy objectives rather than tactical trading objectives. 2) Strengthening the institutional capacity to deal with financial portfolio management and with the public policy aspects of debt management. 3) Modernizing debt management. 4) Creating mechanisms to ensure successful delegation and accountability to the Ministry of Finance and Parliament.Publication The Global Findex Database 2025: Connectivity and Financial Inclusion in the Digital Economy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-16)The Global Findex 2025 reveals how mobile technology is equipping more adults around the world to own and use financial accounts to save formally, access credit, make and receive digital payments, and pursue opportunities. Including the inaugural Global Findex Digital Connectivity Tracker, this fifth edition of Global Findex presents new insights on the interactions among mobile phone ownership, internet use, and financial inclusion. The Global Findex is the world’s most comprehensive database on digital and financial inclusion. It is also the only global source of comparable demand-side data, allowing cross-country analysis of how adults access and use mobile phones, the internet, and financial accounts to reach digital information and resources, save, borrow, make payments, and manage their financial health. Data for the Global Findex 2025 were collected from nationally representative surveys of about 145,000 adults in 141 economies. The latest edition follows the 2011, 2014, 2017, and 2021 editions and includes new series measuring mobile phone ownership and internet use, digital safety, and frequency of transactions using financial services. The Global Findex 2025 is an indispensable resource for policy makers in the fields of digital connectivity and financial inclusion, as well as for practitioners, researchers, and development professionals.Publication Digital Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2023-03-13)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 Global Development Finance 2009 : Charting a Global Recovery, Volume 2. Summary and Country Tables(2009)This report is comprised of two volumes. Global Development Finance (GDF) 2009 volume one provides analysis of key trends and prospects, including coverage of the role of international banking in developing countries. Volume two provides summary and country tables and contains statistical tables on the external debt of the 128 countries that report public and publicly guaranteed debt under the Debtor Reporting System (DRS). It also includes tables of selected debt and resource flow statistics for individual reporting countries as well as summary tables for regional and income groups. It is the culmination of a year-long process that requires extensive cooperation from people and organizations around the globe-national central banks, ministries of finance, major multilateral organizations, and many departments of the World Bank.