Disasters damage and destroy infrastructure and disrupt economic activities and services, potentially delaying long-term development and hampering efforts to reduce poverty in the region. Countries require a strong enabling environment for disaster risk financing to ensure the timely availability of post-disaster funding. Furthermore, measures are required both to reduce this risk and to enhance the management of the residual or remaining risk. There is growing recognition of the importance of robust financial management of disaster risk as part of these efforts, ensuring that there are adequate financing arrangements in place to facilitate prompt and effective post-disaster response, thus limiting the economic and social consequences of the direct physical losses caused by a disaster.
This report presents a comprehensive country diagnostics framework that can be applied to support countries in assessing and strengthening their financial management of disaster risk. It focuses on the state of the enabling environment and opportunities for its enhancement to support the increased availability and uptake of insurance and other risk transfer instruments. This report also provides a framework that examines the state of the enabling environment and incorporates lessons from country diagnostics assessments for Fiji, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.