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Photo: Lai Ming So / World Bank Jamuna is one of the largest and most dynamic rivers in the world. It provides a lifeline to millions of people, Bangladeshis who farm its banks, fish its waters, and build their homes along its shores. Yet, the river is a paradox. The same river becomes a force of devastation when the rains come heavy— washing away harvests, livestock, and livelihoods, displacing people and pushing them to poverty in a matter of days. For the communities most dependent on the...
Across the World Bank Group, we often hear the same question from our clients: “We know what works—so how do we make it work here, and make it last?” This is the real challenge today. It is not a lack of knowledge. It is the difficulty of adapting proven solutions to complex country contexts, building the institutional capacity to sustain them, and turning insights into real policy and operational change. This is exactly why the WBG Academy was created. Over the past few years, I have seen...
Please find French translation below / Veuillez trouver la traduction française ci-dessous Pastoralists across the Horn of Africa have waited for rains to come during the short rains season, from October to December 2025, however they did not come. The season was characterized as uneven with below average rainfall leading to drought conditions in parts of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia. This affects the livelihoods of many of the pastoralists in the area who account for over one-third of...
In December 2024, Cyclone Chido hit Comoros and destroyed homes and crops on the islands of Anjouan and Mohéli, leaving many without food and shelter and endangering livelihoods. However, earlier that year, Comoros had joined the Regional Emergency Preparedness and Access to Inclusive Recovery Program (REPAIR), approved by the Board of Directors of the World Bank with a US$926 million maximum financing, supported by a US$26 million grant from the Global Shield Financing Facility. Through REPAIR...
Pre-disaster Financial Planning Pays Off Southeast Asia is among the world’s most disaster-prone regions. Over 2025 alone, floods, typhoons, and landslides have disrupted lives, jobs, and economic activities across Cambodia, the Lao PDR, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Viet Nam. As climate change intensifies, countries need not only stronger response systems but also faster and more predictable funding to protect vulnerable populations and safeguard development gains. Between 2015 and 2020...
From February 23 to 28, 2025, a delegation of 13 representatives from financial sector authorities from Djibouti, Kenya, and Somalia, along with representatives from the DRIVE implementing partner ZEP-RE, participated in a targeted knowledge exchange visit to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Organized by the FCI Crisis and Disaster Risk Finance and East Africa teams, the study tour deepened understanding of Islamic finance, particularly Takaful and Islamic capital markets, as part of a broader effort to...
Photo Credit: Alain Nikingi, Pexels | Floods in Kalehe, South-Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo. At the time when the Government of South Africa approached the World Bank’s Disaster Risk Financing (DRF) Program about looking beyond natural disasters to social risks such as social violence, which costs South Africa $45.6 billion (13% of GDP) annually, we had already begun exploring this challenge. We were grappling with the complex, dynamic way in which social risks interact with public health...