Refocusing Disaster Aid

Abstract

With new modeling techniques for estimating and pricing the risks of natural disasters, the donor community is now in a position to help the poor cope with the economic repercussions of disasters by assisting before they happen. Such assistance is possible with the advent of novel insurance instruments for transferring catastrophe risks to the global financial markets. Donor-supported risk-transfer programs not only would leverage limited disaster-aid budgets but also would free recipient countries from depending on the vagaries of postdisaster assistance. Both donors and recipients stand to gain, especially because the instruments can be closely coupled with preventive measures.

Estimating least-developed countries’ vulnerability to climate-related extreme events over the next 50 years

“…First, measures to reduce vulnerability to extreme weather events account for a particularly large share of estimated adaptation financial needs (1). Second, in the context of efforts to achieve a wide range of development goals, it is only within the last few years that development assistance funds have been used to help mitigate losses from extreme weather events (7), and so analysis based on these types of losses may generate a more accurate measure of autonomous adaptive capacity than that based on other climate change impacts.…”

Toward a Sustainable and Resilient Future

“…In addition, these mechanisms can also help to anticipate and reduce (economic) risk as they reduce volatility and increase economic resilience at the household, national, and regional levels (Linnerooth-Bayer et al, 2005). As one example, with such insurance, drought-exposed farmers in Malawi have been able to access improved seeds for higher yielding and higher risk crops, thus helping them to make a leap ahead in terms of generating higher incomes and the adoption of higher return technologies (World Bank, 2005;Hazell and Hess, 2010).…”

International tourism, vulnerability, and disaster capitalism

“…While it is impossible to predict future social and political upheavals with much certainty, the UNWTO forecast is particularly relevant in terms of the growing scientific consensus that climate change is affecting extreme weather events, increasing the intensity, and perhaps the frequency, of hurricanes and flooding, particularly in coastal zones [4,5]. These increases are particularly important in low and middle income countries since fatalities per event, direct economic losses as share of income are inversely related to national per capita income, and insurance coverage is low or nonexistant [6]. Moreover, while the risks/costs of climate change and extreme weather events continue to rise in terms of human lives, decimated economies, and damaged ecologies (especially in poorer countries), it is increasingly clear that these escalating costs are due to deep social and ecological vulnerabilities as much as by "natural" hazards [7][8][9].…”