Unbreakable: The effects of policy options on well-being and asset losses in 117 countries

This report provides estimates of the potential benefits from risk reduction, risk management and recovery policies in 117 countries. These estimates provide insight into promising courses of action, but do not indicate whether or what measures need to be implemented, which requires an additional assessment of costs. The report is an appendix to the main report, Unbreakable: Building the Resilience of the Poor in the Face of Natural Disasters, which estimated policy benefits at global scale and in a few selected countries.

This report reproduces chapter 7 of the main report, which illustrates the approach using a few countries with very different characteristics, and additionally provides disaster management profiles for every country.

The main finding is that the potential of disaster risk management policies differs across countries, depending on their socioeconomic characteristics, their exposure to different hazards, and the actions they have already implemented to help people manage risks. In all countries, however, there are promising opportunities to reduce asset losses through risk mitigation and to increase resilience by enhancing the ability of people to cope with disaster losses.

Another important finding is that in many countries, especially low-income ones, very promising options to build people’s resilience are also good poverty reduction and development policies—examples are financial inclusion or social protection. In these countries, it is very easy to align development priorities with disaster risk management and build on the synergies between these two objectives.