Publication: Financial Protection of Critical Infrastructure Services
Loading...
Published
2021-03
ISSN
Date
2022-02-01
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
This report uses the term critical infrastructure to refer to all the aspects required to deliver the critical services (e.g., transport, health care, energy). Six sectors are widely classified as being critical: energy, transport, water, information and communications technologies, health care, and finance. Some economies include education and critical economic and manufacturing sectors within their definitions. The focus of this report is on the financial protection of critical infrastructure services. This focus complements existing, well-documented evidence and frameworks, including evidence collated by the World Bank30, about the operational and physical protection and the resilience of critical infrastructure assets, and about best practice in incorporating resilience within PPPs in infrastructure. The financial aspects of resilience of critical infrastructure services are not widely discussed in the existing literature, yet this is a critical component of overall resilience. A 2014 publication by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) titled Recommendations on Managing Critical Risks emphasized the role of financial preparedness in managing critical infrastructure risks to protect public finances and the fiscal position of a country. The 2018 and 2019 APEC Joint Ministerial Statements explicitly highlight the importance of quality and resilience, of the infrastructure’s strengths against climate and disasters, and of the role of financial protection in this context.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank. 2021. Financial Protection of Critical Infrastructure Services. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/36902 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 Helping South Asia Cope with Natural Disasters : The Role of Social Protection(Washington, DC, 2007-09)Addressing the social protection needs of households during emergencies is a major development issue. Without social protection measures, such as cash transfers for basic needs or workfare programs, many households faced with large economic and natural shocks might deplete their human and physical capital, reducing their ability to participate in economic development. Social protection measures (cash transfers, in particular) are therefore assuming a growing role in the World Bank to help the poor cope with the aftermath of a disaster. In South Asia, all three recent major emergency-related operations in South Asia (Sri Lanka, Maldives, and Pakistan) included cash transfers components. This discussion paper, an input to the South Asia region's social protection and hazard risk management strategies, describes the cash transfer instruments supported by the Bank in South Asia, evaluates their design and implementation, and suggests improvements to increase their effectiveness. Based on available evidence, the paper finds that cash transfers appear to have performed well in providing relief to affected households, suggesting that they should remain an integral part of Bank-financed support for natural disasters. The paper also suggests that the Bank can ensure timely and high-quality support through a best-practice design toolkit, a right-on-time technical assistance facility, and by integrating social protection in emergency preparedness by building the capacity of national social assistance (cash transfers) agencies to respond to natural disasters. Although the focus is on cash transfers, the note also discusses other types of social protection mechanisms used in emergencies in South Asia and worldwide, e.g., workfare or social care for the vulnerable, and which might also appropriate for including in Bank emergency operations. The note covers South Asia, but lessons from this region may also be relevant for governments of other developing countries and donors. Finally, while the focus of the paper is on social protection instruments for natural disasters, several of these instruments have also proved useful in post-conflict situations and in economic crises.Publication Building Resilience to Disaster and Climate Change through Social Protection(Washington, DC, 2013-05)Natural disasters and climate change are among the greatest threats to development. Although natural disasters have always presented risks, climate change increases those risks and compounds them by adding a greater level of uncertainty. As a result of their increased frequency, the economic and social costs of disasters are mounting (World Bank 2010). Natural disasters and climate change can push people into chronic and transient poverty and force them to adopt negative coping strategies. Social protection programs play an important role in protecting poor and vulnerable people from these impacts and helping them reduce their exposure and vulnerability to them. This toolkit provides guidance on how to prepare social protection programs to respond to disasters and climate change. The snapshots of good practice experiences and practical tips for implementation are intended to guide decision makers in countries facing these risks in adapting their social protection programs to reduce negative impacts and accelerate recovery. The focus of this toolkit is aligned with the role and expertise of the World Bank, which has traditionally supported early and long-term recovery and helped rebuild livelihoods and infrastructure. This toolkit provides examples of good practice experiences and practical guidance for the practitioner in that direction.Publication Insurance against Climate Change : Financial Disaster Risk Management and Insurance Options for Climate Change Adaptation in Bulgaria(Washington, DC, 2014)Bulgaria is exposed to nearly all types of climate extremes, including floods, droughts, and others, as well as earthquakes. The combination of insurance products, early warning systems, information campaigns, infrastructure adaptation measures, and strict regulations can be very useful in tackling the negative climate change impacts. This note provides an overview of the insurance sector s contribution to climate change - related risk prevention and highlights some of Bulgaria s ongoing disaster risk management (DRM) efforts. The note aims to raise awareness and emphasize the role that financial disaster risk management (FDRM), including insurance, can have in climate change adaptation. Based on a desk review and preliminary in-country stakeholder consultations, the note s findings are meant to motivate new thinking and serve as an engagement tool for ongoing in-country discussions, as well to help identify analytical work to be carried out in the future. Based on the preliminary review of Bulgaria s specific context, several ideas are being put forward to be further explored in the ongoing discussions toward creating FDRM products to address the major natural disasters (in particular, floods, droughts, and earthquakes) and improving adaptation to climate change. Potential areas of analysis that can be further explored and, as such, plant a seed for future action can focus on promoting risk prevention and deploying insurance instruments, including issues around traditional risk management, technology innovation, compulsory disaster insurance, forecast insurance, and disaster insurance pools. The analysis which will assess the extent of vulnerability of the subjects covered by existing insurance products, can subsequently lead to the decisions on priority insurance products to be introduced in the future.Publication Global Program for Avian Influenza Control and Human Pandemic Preparedness and Response : Project Accomplishments(World Bank Group, Washington, DC, 2014-09)This report reviews some of the accomplishments of the Global Program for Avian Influenza Control and Human Pandemic Preparedness and Response (GPAI). This multisectoral program comprised 72 projects in 60 developing countries in all regions and received $1.3 billion in financing from the World Bank. This support for GPAI projects was one of the World Bank s contributions to a coordinated global response to the threats of avian and pandemic influenzas, which benefited from financing of $4 billion from 35 donors in 2006-2013. Thanks to this support, developing countries strengthened their capacity for early and effective disease control, bringing substantial public health and economic benefits to the countries and to the world. According to Harvard University Professor and former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, "[veterinary and human public health systems are] probably the single most important area for productive investment on behalf of mankind." Indeed, circulation of the highly pathogenic avian flu virus was reduced, helping to lessen the likelihood of onset of a pandemic. Moreover, the projects improved public health systems for reducing locally-relevant health threats. The report presents a brief background on the global program and cross-country accomplishments and then highlights accomplishments for each project, by region.Publication Business Continuity Plans(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2011-03-01)A Business Continuity Plan (BCP) identifies the potential effects of disruptions to an organization's critical operations if a disaster were to occur, and specifies effective response actions and quick recovery measures. In the Great East Japan Earthquake (GEJE), BCPs served their purpose to some extent, but certain weaknesses were identified. While BCPs helped to keep critical operational functions going, and then to rehabilitate general operations, most small-and medium-sized enterprises had, unfortunately, not even prepared BCPs. Since the private sector plays a major role in creating jobs and supporting local economies, it should be required to prepare BCPs, but with support from the government. The private sector plays a major role in creating employment and supporting the local economy, thereby ensuring regional sustainability. In the event of a disaster, the role of the private sector becomes even more important in this respect.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Reclaiming the Lost Century of Growth: Building Learning Economies in Latin America and the Caribbean(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-06)Update: The Spanish version of the full book was published on September 9, 2025. Latin America and the Caribbean has lost not decades but a century of growth due to its inability to learn—to identify, adapt, and implement the new technologies emerging since the Second Industrial Revolution. Superstars like Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay fell behind peers like France and Germany, while the entire region retrogressed in industries it once dominated and was unable to take advantage of new opportunities that propelled similarly lagging countries to high-income status. The report shows that this remains the case today as the region’s firms continue to lag in assimilating new technologies. However, it argues that Latin America and the Caribbean can reclaim the lost century by building learning economies, creating the human capital, institutions, and incentives needed to increase the demand for knowledge, facilitate the flow of new ideas, and foment the process of experimentation.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 Poverty, Prosperity, and Planet Report 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-10-15)The Poverty, Prosperity, and Planet Report 2024 is the latest edition of the series formerly known as Poverty and Shared Prosperity. The report emphasizes that reducing poverty and increasing shared prosperity must be achieved in ways that do not come at unacceptably high costs to the environment. The current “polycrisis”—where the multiple crises of slow economic growth, increased fragility, climate risks, and heightened uncertainty have come together at the same time—makes national development strategies and international cooperation difficult. Offering the first post-Coronavirus (COVID)-19 pandemic assessment of global progress on this interlinked agenda, the report finds that global poverty reduction has resumed but at a pace slower than before the COVID-19 crisis. Nearly 700 million people worldwide live in extreme poverty with less than US$2.15 per person per day. Progress has essentially plateaued amid lower economic growth and the impacts of COVID-19 and other crises. Today, extreme poverty is concentrated mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa and fragile settings. At a higher standard more typical of upper-middle-income countries—US$6.85 per person per day—almost one-half of the world is living in poverty. The report also provides evidence that the number of countries that have high levels of income inequality has declined considerably during the past two decades, but the pace of improvements in shared prosperity has slowed, and that inequality remains high in Latin America and the Caribbean and Sub-Saharan Africa. Worldwide, people’s incomes today would need to increase fivefold on average to reach a minimum prosperity threshold of US$25 per person per day. Where there has been progress in poverty reduction and shared prosperity, there is evidence of an increasing ability of countries to manage natural hazards, but climate risks are significantly higher in the poorest settings. Nearly one in five people globally is at risk of experiencing welfare losses due to an extreme weather event from which they will struggle to recover. The interconnected issues of climate change and poverty call for a united and inclusive effort from the global community. Development cooperation stakeholders—from governments, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector to communities and citizens acting locally in every corner of the globe—hold pivotal roles in promoting fair and sustainable transitions. By emphasizing strategies that yield multiple benefits and diligently monitoring and addressing trade-offs, we can strive toward a future that is prosperous, equitable, and resilient.Publication Global Economic Prospects, June 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-10)The global economy is facing another substantial headwind, emanating largely from an increase in trade tensions and heightened global policy uncertainty. For emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs), the ability to boost job creation and reduce extreme poverty has declined. Key downside risks include a further escalation of trade barriers and continued policy uncertainty. These challenges are exacerbated by subdued foreign direct investment into EMDEs. Global cooperation is needed to restore a more stable international trade environment and scale up support for vulnerable countries grappling with conflict, debt burdens, and climate change. Domestic policy action is also critical to contain inflation risks and strengthen fiscal resilience. To accelerate job creation and long-term growth, structural reforms must focus on raising institutional quality, attracting private investment, and strengthening human capital and labor markets. Countries in fragile and conflict situations face daunting development challenges that will require tailored domestic policy reforms and well-coordinated multilateral support.Publication State and Trends of Carbon Pricing 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-05-21)This report provides an up-to-date overview of existing and emerging carbon pricing instruments around the world, including international, national, and subnational initiatives. It also investigates trends surrounding the development and implementation of carbon pricing instruments and some of the drivers seen over the past year. Specifically, this report covers carbon taxes, emissions trading systems (ETSs), and crediting mechanisms. Key topics covered in the 2024 report include uptake of ETSs and carbon taxes in low- and middle- income economies, sectoral coverage of ETSs and carbon taxes, and the use of crediting mechanisms as part of the policy mix.