The impact of pre-arranged disaster finance: evidence gap assessment

This paper examines the evidence on how to prepare better for disasters, specifically the evidence on the welfare impacts of interventions that pre-arrange finance for disaster response.

The review considers both interventions that strengthen the ability of individuals and firms to pre-arrange finance for disasters, and interventions that pre-arrange finance for governments, humanitarian agencies, and NGOs for disaster response. It considers the evidence from peer-reviewed publications that use a valide method for assessing impact.

The authors find that the quality of evidence is mixed across this space. There is stronger evidence on the impact of interventions that increase a household's ability to pre-arrange finance for a disaster than on the benefits of pre-arranging finance for public disaster response. Evidence on meso-insurance is limited.