Prioritizing climate resilient transport investments in a data-scarce environment: A practitioners’ guide

This practitioners’ guide aims to provide guidance for the prioritization of climate resilient investments in road infrastructure by presenting a general methodology, a conceptual framework, and a case study of the process that was conducted in Belize. It specifically addresses environments where data is scarce, but there exists institutional memory that can be harnessed. It makes use of existing data, draws on expert knowledge, and actively engages with key stakeholders to identify and prioritize key national investments using a participatory and data-informed process.

The Belize Government wished to identify areas of the road network that combine highest risk with highest socioeconomic criticality to efficiently direct resources toward the highest climate resilience enhancing impact. In response to this request, the World Bank worked with the Government to carry out an assessment and prioritization process that resulted in identification of investments aimed at increasing the country’s resilience to the impacts of natural hazards by improving key road segments in the road network. This guide is informed by the prioritization process and lessons learned from this project.