Weathering storms: Understanding the impact of natural disasters on the poor in Central America

Although Central America’s recent good economic performance has enabled a sustained reduction of poverty, a large percentage of its population is still battling poverty and extremely vulnerable to natural disasters. A better understanding of the impacts and potential coping mechanisms is valuable input to inform poverty reduction strategies and policies taking into consideration disaster and climate risk management considerations.

Overall, the methodology of this study improves the understanding on how impacts and economic outcomes are modeled in Central America, providing a systematic approach to quantifying the effects of disasters on poverty and other well‐being indicators in the region. The comparative approach, in terms of hurricane damage indexes, provides a better understanding of how windstorm could impact economic and social outcomes. That is how, the results of this report demonstrate the causal relationship between hurricane windstorm impacts and poverty in Central America, producing regional evidence that could improve targeting of disaster risk management policies toward those most impacted and thus whose needs are greatest.