Regional analysis of socio-economic impacts of the December 2004 earthquake and Indian Ocean Tsunami

The magnitude and extent of the human toll of the 2004 Earthquake and Indian Ocean Tsunami caused widespread destruction and mobilized an enormous effort for humanitarian assistance. In this context, ADPC aimed at fostering disaster preparedness and management in the Asian region – formulated a technical cooperation project aimed precisely at the formulation of proposals for collective disaster risk reduction (with special reference to financial risk management) that the countries may adopt.

The initial project proposal was divided into two phases. The first phase would be comprised of a comparative study to determine the impact of the disaster on the five most affected countries in order to identify possible collective actions for disaster risk management and reduction. The second phase would include an analysis of the existing framework of disaster financial risk in the countries and the formulation of schemes for regional financial risk transfer and reduction schemes. This report describes the results of the first phase.