Nov 21, 2022
Climate change and disasters are inextricably linked. Climate-related disasters have almost doubled in the last twenty years. Additionally, by affecting the exposure of people, nature, and assets to hazards, increasing vulnerability, and undermining livelihoods, climate change aggravates the full array of disaster risks. COVID-19 brought into sharp focus the interconnectedness of human health, environmental degradation, climate change impacts, and development, and how risks and challenges that appear to be confined to a specific context can reverberate across the globe. Recovery from this health crisis, therefore, presents an opportunity to treat the causes behind disasters of all types, rather than the symptoms, and better prepare the world for future threats.
CIF understands that disaster risk management (DRM) is essential to resilience against future climate, environmental, and global economic risks and shocks, and has been responding accordingly. With its USD 1.2 billion portfolio of projects under the Pilot Program for Climate Resilience (PPCR), CIF supports countries in reducing climate vulnerability and risks, promoting climate adaptation, and building climate resilience. In the wake of COVID-19, CIF launched the COVID-19 Technical Assistance (TA) Response Initiative to support green and resilient recoveries, under its Technical Assistance Facility (TAF).
CIF contributes to the attainment of the Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) while simultaneously supporting DRM action. CIF’s actions on DRM are aligned with the four priority areas identified under the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction: understanding disaster risk, strengthening disaster risk governance, investing in disaster risk reduction for resilience, and enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response and to “Build Back Better”.
Understanding Disaster Risk
CIF funding has actively supported disaster risk assessment, the generation of information and knowledge products to better understand disaster risk, and the dissemination of disaster risk information. For example, in Bangladesh and the Caribbean and Pacific regions, disaster risk is now better understood thanks to climate modelling and downscaling, Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) mapping, and geographic information systems.
But these types of products are only part of the solution. Collaboration to continually improve our understanding of risk is the basis for integrated solutions. For instance, in Samoa, traditional and scientific disaster risk knowledge and approaches have been blended to create the improved Coastal Infrastructure Management Plans. In Papua New Guinea, TAF is helping to develop a blockchain-based risk insurance for smallholder coffee farmers to help them better understand and plan for their exposure to climate and disasters. And in St. Lucia and the Pacific region, South-South learning is critical for success.
Strengthening Disaster Risk Governance
CIF investments supported regional, national, and local collaboration, mainstreaming DRM in policy, planning, and regulation, as well as financing and budgetary arrangements. In St. Lucia and the Pacific Region, for instance, PPCR is mainstreaming DRM through widespread planning and policy development for key sectors affected by disaster risk, while in the latter, technical inputs influenced various national and local development budgets to better incorporate DRM (and adaptation) considerations.
DRM is not a challenge that can be addressed meaningfully in isolation from other governance agendas, so collaborative decision-making is foundational for sustained action. In Cambodia, for instance, PPCR has promoted transboundary flood management within the context of the Mekong River Commission, allowing countries to share flood and drought forecasting and have a sustained dialogue for joint action.
Investing in Disaster Risk Reduction for Resilience
CIF has supported structural measures designed to reduce disaster risks. These include flood control infrastructure in Cambodia, Tonga, St. Lucia, Bangladesh, Jamaica and Grenada, and hydrometeorological observation infrastructure in Tajikistan and Haiti to capture data necessary for the development of severe weather and hazardous conditions information, as well as building the resilience of infrastructure to hazards across a wide range of sectors.
CIF has also invested in non-structural measures, such as resilient livelihoods and protection, restoration, and sustainable management of natural resources and ecosystems, and capacity building. Non-structural measures have less profile than expensive infrastructure but have proven to be effective and cost efficient. A ridge-to-reef project utilizing nature-based solutions in Samoa wove all these threads together to reduce communities’ exposure to disaster risk. Similarly, in the Greater Mekong Subregion, TAF provides policy support for integrating nature-based solutions in COVID-19 response and recovery plans, demonstrating a critically significant trend towards a more holistic agenda to tackle causes of disaster and crisis.
Enhancing Disaster Preparedness for Effective Response and to “Build Back Better”
CIF has supported early warning, emergency infrastructure, and emergency funding mechanisms. For example, early warning of hazardous events has been strengthened in Cambodia and Nepal. In the Caribbean, a PPCR funded project has developed an app to ensure fishermen are prepared and alerted when weather-related events occur, and are supported in resilient decision-making more broadly. Also in the region, PPCR has supported the rehabilitation of emergency shelters and helped set up a contingent emergency funding mechanism (CERC), boosting preparedness and emergency response capacity.
The CIF experience highlights that effective preparedness, response, and recovery hinge on the interconnectivity of and partnerships between risk reduction, humanitarian, and developmental actors, as well as on the meaningful engagement of the most vulnerable and marginalized communities.
These contributions demonstrate how DRM funding and climate action can work together to maximize impact in addressing shared challenges. Further still, the interconnected and deeply significant disaster risk challenges posed by climate change, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse, public health crises, and economic and security instability must guide the advancement of sustainable and integrated solutions.
