Welfare Tracking in the Aftermath of Crisis

Abstract

The September 2018 earthquake, tsunami, and liquefaction in Central Sulawesi—the deadliest natural disaster to hit Indonesia since the 2004 Aceh tsunami—exposed challenges in accessing real-time data on what assistance, how much assistance, and where immediate assistance is needed for emergency relief, and the subsequent recovery and reconstruction phases. In response, the World Bank developed a Welfare Tracking in the Aftermath of Crisis (WelTrAC) tool, which employs a mixture of panel household survey data and remote-sensed satellite imagery data to integrate micro and macro levels of disaster impact and recovery assessments, and presents the updated findings regularly on an interactive web-based monitoring dashboard.

WelTrAC aims to fill the information gaps on the dynamics of welfare and living conditions of disaster-affected victims during the period following a disaster. Such information is crucial in strengthening the Government’s ability to implement effective disaster response strategies for rapid and sustainable recovery.