Over 400 natural disasters occur worldwide each year, placing millions of people at risk, particularly those living in countries supported by the International Development Association (IDA). In 2023, these disasters resulted in a staggering $250 billion loss and claimed 74,000 lives globally. Severe regional storms were responsible for 76% of the economic losses. Furthermore, the looming climate change is expected to trigger even more destructive weather events in coastal regions worldwide, underscoring the urgency of the situation.
Defining disaster is problematic as there are multiple formal definitions. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as "An event or occurrence of a ruinous or very distressing nature; a calamity; esp. a sudden accident or natural catastrophe that causes great damage or loss of life."
Disasters can be natural (e.g., earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes, floods) and human-made (e.g., war, climate change, accidents). If prepared, natural hazards do not have to result in catastrophic events.
Investing to minimize the damage
Mozambique's successful resilience against Cyclone Freddy is a compelling model of the lessons learned and implemented after Cyclone Idai in 2019. On February 5, 2023, a minor weather disturbance off the coast of northwest Australia turned into the longest-lived tropical cyclone on record, cyclone Freddy. It traveled 5,000 miles across the Indian Ocean and hit Southern Mozambique almost three weeks later.
On February 24, 2023, Avelino Binda, a fisherman from Inhambane, a southern province of Mozambique, was getting ready to go to sea as usual when he received an alert about an approaching storm.
Cyclone Idai's devastation was still fresh in people's minds. With the help of the International Development Association (IDA), Mozambique developed a new early warning system to track and minimize potential hazards, taking early action and saving lives. This early warning system allowed Avelino and other communities to prepare and find shelter quickly.
Moving from response to resilience
Cyclone Freddy later strengthened and slammed Mozambique and Malawi again on March 11, 2023, causing devastating floods as heavy rains and storm surges came ashore. Unfortunately, Cyclone Freddy caused over 1,000 deaths and displaced hundreds of thousands in Malawi. IDA redirected funding for essential aid, and a post-disaster needs assessment estimated $600 million in damages and $700 million in recovery needs. Looking ahead to the long term, IDA is preparing a comprehensive crisis response and resilience program to help Malawi scale up critical work on degraded landscapes.
How does IDA approach crisis preparedness?
In today's uncertain world, where people, especially in many IDA countries, are at risk from extreme weather events, pandemics, conflicts, and violence, being prepared for crises is crucial.
IDA considers crisis preparedness a policy priority, aiming to enhance countries' understanding of essential crisis risks and strengthen their capacity to manage a range of shocks. IDA offers an extensive toolkit to help countries manage their crisis risks. It covers various types of crises at various stages of risk onset, from resilience-building to post-crisis interventions.
One important tool that IDA utilizes is the Crisis Response Window (CRW). It provides extra financing to IDA countries to address the impacts of severe natural disasters, public health emergencies, and economic crises as a last resort. IDA also uses early response financing (ERF) to assist with minor events that have the potential to develop into major crises, but are still in the early stages. This financing provides immediate support and promotes resilience, which is a vital aspect of long-term disaster management.
Crisis-specific tools, such as the Catastrophe Deferred Drawdown Option (CAT-DDO), promote policy discussions and reforms on resilience. IDA allocates unused project financing for crisis response using contingent emergency response components (CERCs). These tools constitute pre-arranged financing that countries can access rapidly should a disaster strike.
Crisis preparedness gap analysis (CPGA)
While many IDA countries proactively take steps to improve their preparedness to manage complex crises, further progress is needed. The World Bank uses the Crisis Preparedness Gap Analysis (CPGA) as part of the new crisis toolkit. This high-level diagnostic tool evaluates the gaps and weaknesses in-country response systems to find ways to improve crisis preparedness as part of a comprehensive dialogue on crisis risk management and resilience. It was developed to support the implementation of policy commitments related to crisis preparedness in IDA20.
The CPGA focuses on five components.
The CPGA's assessment is comprehensive, covering both cross-sectoral elements of preparedness relevant to any shock (such as the ability to deploy support to vulnerable households through Adaptive Social Protection (ASP)) and shock-specific elements, like disease surveillance capacities or disaster early warning systems. This thorough approach ensures that no aspect of crisis preparedness is overlooked.
The CPGA presents the country's risk profile, identifying the gaps, key findings, and practical recommendations to policymakers. It outlines a roadmap for the implementation of preparedness across relevant sectors, empowering policymakers with actionable steps to enhance crisis preparedness.
According to the International Disaster Database (EM-DAT) of the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED), the number of disaster events increased from 124 in 1980 to 410 in 2023. With the impact of climate change, the world will experience more frequent and severe extreme weather events, such as intense tropical cyclones, leading to heightened levels of flooding in low-lying regions. (It's worth noting that the increase in reported disasters may partly be due to improved data reporting since the 1970s.)
The world is more resilient to disasters than just a few decades ago.
Bangladesh is recognized for effectively managing natural disasters. Since 1970, it has reduced cyclone-related deaths by 100-fold. It has a strong network of community-based early warning systems and sophisticated hydrometeorological technologies for weather forecasting. With support from IDA, the country has built cyclone shelters, strengthened polder systems, improved early warning systems, and upgraded embankments.
The country still faces significant risk from climate-related hazards due to its location and experiences annual losses of about $1 billion from tropical cyclones alone. However, the country has come a long way, and IDA will continue to support Bangladesh in improving resilience through innovative solutions.
Thanks to advancements in weather forecasting and disaster management, the number of annual deaths has decreased almost threefold. Implementing an early warning system for floods, droughts, heat waves, and storms would alert people about hazardous weather conditions, provide information on minimizing the impending impacts, and ultimately save lives. Nonetheless, one in three people in low-income and small island developing countries still lack coverage under early warning systems.
Protecting people with early warning systems
A Global Commission on Adaptation study found that Early Warning Systems provide over a tenfold return on investment. Just 24 hours of warning about a coming storm or heatwave can reduce damage by 30%, and investing $800 million in such systems in developing countries could prevent annual losses of $3-16 billion.
Despite the advancements, many IDA countries still need to fill the gaps in forecasting and, more importantly, communicate to overcome the worst consequences. Recent advances in AI-based weather models can cost-effectively predict long-term climate projections and extreme weather events. However, merely enhancing predictions is insufficient; the information must be effectively communicated to enable people to take necessary action.
How does it work in Mozambique?
The National Meteorology Institute (INAM) issues weather warnings based on satellite imagery, radar, and observation network data. The Institute of Social Communication (ICS) then disseminates these alerts through its network of 70 community radios and trained community members. The purpose is to warn at-risk communities and guide them to safety before extreme weather events occur. IDA has been actively promoting the creation and strengthening of local disaster risk management committees in all at-risk communities nationwide.
Building back resilient, stronger, and faster
On April 25, 2015, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck central Nepal. Less than one month later, a 7.3 magnitude earthquake followed, causing over 8,700 deaths and around 25,000 injuries.
In a groundbreaking experiment, IDA assisted in rebuilding 330,000 houses using an owner-driven approach. Homeowners made decisions about reconstruction but had to ensure that the houses complied with technical specifications. IDA improved resilient construction practices by training engineers and masons on earthquake-resistant building skills in Nepal, as it did after the earthquakes in Pakistan and Haiti in 2005 and 2010, respectively.
IDA prioritizes addressing climate change and development together, focusing on building resilience and creating jobs in a greening global economy. The impacts of climate change are a great challenge, but IDA's support is yielding results.
For example, the small island countries in the Pacific islands, home to over two million people across numerous islands, face challenges such as rising sea levels and severe storms, which threaten displacement, coastline erosion, and the destruction of natural protective barriers. They underscore the need for resilient infrastructure, such as roads, bridges, and ports, which are crucial for access to health, education, and economic opportunities.
IDA employs various instruments, one of which is the Catastrophe Deferred Drawdown Option (Cat-DDO), which enables IDA to mobilize immediate funds in the event of a disaster. Between 2018 and 2022, Cat-DDOs totaling $274 million were provided to Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.
The Pacific Climate Resilient Transport Program, supported by IDA, upgraded vital transport infrastructure in six countries. It made communities more resilient to extreme weather events and climate change. Approximately 380,000 people across these countries are benefiting from greater access to transport services.
Nurture the nature
About one-third of the world's population relies on forests and forest products, and over 90% of people living in extreme poverty depend on forests for their livelihoods. By 2030, an estimated 46 million hectares of natural land could be converted into cropland and forest plantations. This conversion could potentially result in a loss of $90 billion in global GDP, and with the loss of carbon sequestration services, the potential loss could be as high as $225 billion. This would have significant implications for countries, particularly in many IDA-supported countries, that rely heavily on the natural ecosystem for essential goods and services such as food and raw materials, pollination, and water filtration.
Is the world ready for the next big thing?
The world is better prepared for the next large outbreak because of technological breakthroughs built on years of investment in research. The COVID-19 pandemic has massively accelerated vaccine development. However, low-income countries have struggled to access it as wealthy nations prioritize their citizens. COVID-19 made clear the importance of preventing, preparing for, and responding to pandemics, especially in low-income countries.
Over the years, IDA has supported pandemic prevention and response during outbreaks such as Avian Flu, SARS, Swine Flu, Zika, and Ebola. Following the Ebola outbreak in West and Central Africa, IDA specifically focused on strengthening disease outbreak preparedness in Sub-Saharan Africa over the past decade.
In 2013, an Ebola outbreak gripped West Africa, devastating communities and destroying economies in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, erasing many of the health, education, and economic gains these countries have achieved. In 2018, Ebola struck the Democratic Republic of Congo, and it overwhelmed the public health systems, allowing for rapid escalation and spread of Ebola while disrupting essential and life-saving health services. Using its Crisis Response Window, IDA provided emergency funding for a comprehensive response throughout the outbreaks. The outbreak highlighted the importance of cooperation between countries to prevent, detect, and respond to disease outbreaks.
Human-made disasters
The world is heading towards a future where severe weather and dwindling natural resources surpass Earth's capacity to support humans. Human-made disasters, such as recent trends in global warming, cyber-attacks, economic insecurity, pandemics, war, nuclear radiation, and AI, pose existential threats to humanity.
Debt crisis
Due to unmanageable debt, the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted that low-income countries could not meet critical needs like health and education. In 2022, IDA-eligible countries' combined external debt stock hit a record $1.1 trillion and paid $88.9 billion in debt-servicing costs.
There have been some positive developments: With the help of IDA, Somalia completed the HIPC Initiative, allowing IDA to reengage with the country. IDA has been helping countries improve debt transparency and fiscal sustainability since 2020 through its Sustainable Development Finance Policy (SDFP)
Ukraine war
The war in Ukraine has raised agricultural commodity prices, impacting many IDA countries. African countries, especially West Africa, heavily rely on wheat imports from Russia and Ukraine. To mitigate security and political stability risks, IDA offers emergency funding to help prevent additional shocks as countries recover from the pandemic.
What sets IDA apart?
IDA is well-positioned to support countries in crisis preparedness, drawing from its experience in natural disaster support. Its holistic crisis management strategy sets it apart from other institutions.
- IDA stays engaged, maintaining a longer-term development need to integrate crisis risk management and resilience into the development agenda.
- IDA's country-driven model facilitates tailored solutions and the global transfer of knowledge.
- IDA's unearmarked funds help countries prioritize crisis preparedness that fits their country's risk profiles and respond flexibly and at scale when crises occur.
- IDA's global reach allows extensive support such as advisory services, risk assessments, financing, and project design across multiple sectors.
- IDA's strong presence on the ground enables it to complement global expertise with local knowledge on crisis preparedness, especially in Small States where best-fit solutions are critical.
- IDA's pre-arranged financing instruments incentivize crisis preparedness. Unlike humanitarian actors, IDA's mandate requires continued engagement in countries long after an emergency subsides.
Beyond preparedness, IDA supports investments not dependent on specific shocks, such as enhancing governance and institutions for crisis response, adopting risk-based decision-making, and establishing social protection systems for vulnerable communities and households. Additionally, IDA invests in emergency management systems to ensure better inter-agency coordination during crises.