World Risk Report 2021: Focus: Social protection

The WorldRiskIndex 2021 assesses the disaster risk for 181 countries. This covers almost 99 per-cent of the world’s population

Some key findings of the report:

• A  total  of  ten  island  states  are  among  the  15  countries  with  the  highest  disaster  risk.  Their  risk  profile  is  increasingly  also  determined  by  sea-level rise.
• The  countries  with  the  highest  disaster  risk  worldwide  are  Vanuatu  (WRI  47.73),  the  Solo-mon Islands (WRI 31.16), and Tonga (WRI 30.51).
• In a comparison of continents, Oceania has the highest  disaster  risk,  mainly  due  to  its  high  exposure to extreme natural events. Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe follow in descend-ing order of disaster risk
• Africa  is  the  continent  with  the  highest  over-all societal vulnerability. Twelve of the 15 most vulnerable  countries  in  the  world  are  located  there.
• Countries with low economic capacity and income  tend  to  have  higher  vulnerability  or  lower capabilities in averting disasters. In these countries, extreme natural events often lead to further reductions in existing capacities.3

Social Protection

• Social protection contributes to reducing a  society’s vulnerability to extreme natural  events.  In  the  event  of  a  disaster,  social    protection  must  often  be  expanded  at  short  notice  to  meet  increased  protection  needs.  Adaptive  protection  systems  are  particularly  suitable  for  this  purpose,  as  they  can  respond  promptly  to  new  protection  needs  and  effectively  cope  with  shocks  such  as  the  Covid-19  pandemic.
• Informal social protection systems, which include  community-based  institutions  such  as  savings groups or grain banks, exist in parallel to formal, often state-run, protection systems
• Access to rights-based social protection systems has so far only been a reality for a minority of the  world’s  population.  In  many  parts  of  the  world,  the  Covid-19  pandemic  has  highlight-ed how unequally access to social protection  is  distributed.  Without  social  protection,  disasters  exacerbate poverty, deepen existing in  equalities,  weaken  resilience  to  future  crises, and increase the need for humanitarian assistance.
• In  reality,  social  protection  systems  do  not  always reach the people who depend on
• them. The causes for this may be institutional, communicative,  social,  or  physical  barriers  – they often result from a combination of several factors.
• A Global Fund for Social Protection can help to ensure  a  protection  floor  is  provided  even  in  countries that do not have the financial means themselves.  Beyond  that,  in  crisis  situations  the  fund  could  also  help  those  countries  that  are dependent on international support due to short-term financial bottlenecks.
• Social protection is a task that must be financed from  national  resources.  In  this  respect,  inter-national  co-financing  of  the  systems  can  only  be a temporary solution.
• While social protection has gained importance  in  reducing  disaster  risk  and  addressing  the  consequences  of  climate  change  in  recent  years,  a  more  systematic  linkage  that  creates  synergies  between  the  fields  of  action  is  still  needed. For the purpose of Building Back Better, it is also important to integrate effective social  protection  measures  for  the  mitigation  of  and  adaptation  to  climate  change  into  the  recovery of the effects of the pandemic.