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25 June 2020

Five Reasons the Global Risk Financing Facility Is Relevant During an Ongoing Pandemic

COVID-19 has halted the world as we know it. Unfortunately, natural disasters and climate shocks will not stop in its wake. When disasters do strike, they compound the already devastating impacts of COVID-19. After only a few months, COVID-19 has already increased countries’ vulnerability to disasters and has reduced the countries’ capacity for dealing with shocks. It is placing a heavy burden on national health care and social protection systems; it imposes ever-increasing economic exposure in... Keep reading

Featured Authors

Cathy Ansell

Financial Sector Specialist

World Bank Group

Cathy Ansell is a Financial Sector Specialist in the Crisis and Disaster Risk Finance team in the World Bank Group. Cathy primarily works with governments and international organisations to support better financial planning and build resilience to protect those most vulnerable to disasters. Her projects are spread across the Caribbean, South East Asia, Africa and the Pacific regions. Prior to working at the World Bank, Cathy has experience at a London Insurance Market reinsurer and broker and led a catastrophe model development team at Risk Management Solutions. Cathy holds a Master’s Degree in Physics from the University of Oxford and a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Physics from Imperial College, London.

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Sumati Rajput

Financial Sector Specialist

World Bank Group

Sumati Rajput is a Financial Sector Specialist in the Crisis and Disaster Risk Finance team in the World Bank Group. She co-manages the Global Risk Financing Facility (GRiF), a $200m program that supports developing countries to prearrange financial solutions in advance of climate shocks, disasters and other crises. As part of her operational focus, she works in the Africa region to embed financial solutions for macro-fiscal shocks across sectors, particularly through World Bank projects focused on disaster risk management, financial planning, and social protection. In her previous role, she spent five years at the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery and worked on preparing disaster risk management projects in the Africa and the Caribbean regions.

Prior to joining the Bank, she worked as an Economist at AECOM on a diverse set of projects in various geographies within the realm of urban development. Some of these include working on developing a detailed report regarding global best practices in sustainable development, a redevelopment strategy for the city of Miyako in Japan for economic recovery post the 2011 Tsunami, and economic planning for a free zone in Qatar.

Sumati holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics and Psychology from Columbia University and a Post-Graduate Degree in Development Economics from Yale University.

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Evie Calcutt

Financial Sector Specialist

World Bank Group

Evie is a Financial Sector Specialist at the World Bank Group where she has worked globally on disaster risk financing. Key activities include leading policy dialog and developing customized financial solutions with Ministries of Finance to improve their financial resilience to disaster shocks; leading the development of analytical tools which support Ministries of Finance in their selection of financial instruments, including insurance, to protect their fiscal position against disaster risk, and; developing disaster risk financing for scalable safety net programs, which looks to develop mechanisms that enable social protection programs to rapidly increase assistance to the poorest and most vulnerable under disaster conditions.

Prior to joining the Bank, as a qualified actuary with experience of insurance and investment projects in the public and private sector, Evie worked at KPMG and the UK Government. She also worked as a statistician analyzing social research before completing the actuarial qualification. As an actuary at the UK Government Actuary’s Department, she advised government departments on how to better understand and communicate uncertainty, perform quality assurance, and manage their contingent liabilities.

Evie holds a First-Class Bachelor’s Degree in Mathematics and a Masters in Statistics both from the University of Bristol.

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Alfonso Garcia-Mora

Global Director, Finance, Competitiveness & Innovation Global Practice

World Bank Group

Mr. Garcia Mora, a Spanish national, is the Finance Global Director in the Finance, Competitiveness & Innovation Global Practice.

Prior to that he was a Practice Manager for the Latin America and Caribbean Region (LCR). He joined the Bank in 2013 as Lead Financial Sector Specialist in the Finance and Private Sector Development Vice Presidency.

Prior to joining the Bank, Mr. Garcia Mora had a successful 12 year career in the private sector at the Analistas Financieros Internationales consulting group, including as Partner Managing Director during 2007-12. In this capacity, he managed a large team of financial sector analysts and consultants, and gained wide ranging experience on banking sector crisis resolution, banking sector management, funding strategies, and market transactions in Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East and Northern Africa. Mr. Garcia Mora also lectured and published widely on financial sector issues.

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Hanna Uusimaa

Climate Change Specialist with the Pacific Department

Asian Development Bank

Hanna Uusimaa is Climate Change Specialist with the Pacific Department of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). She is currently based at the ADB’s Pacific Subregional Office in Suva, Fiji, focusing on initiatives on climate change and disaster risk management and finance, including regional solutions for disaster contingent financing under the Pacific Disaster Resilience Program. Before joining ADB in 2013, she had worked in various areas of climate change mitigation and adaptation, and natural resource management, with the Inter-American Development Bank, the United Nations, as well as bilateral development programs, in Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Africa. She completed her Master of Science degree in Biology from the University of Helsinki, Finland, with Master’s thesis and studies in Tropical Ecology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

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Emma M. Veve

Director

Urban, Social Development and Public Management Division, Asian Development Bank

Emma M. Veve is Director of Urban, Social Development and Public Management Division in the Pacific Department of the Asian Development Bank, a position she has held since 2014.

The division is responsible for support for public financial management across all the 14 Pacific developing member countries. The frequency of natural disasters in the region creates a challenge for sound fiscal management. Emma has overseen the development of policy based lending as a tool to provide contingent finance to countries post disaster. Forward priorities include building country disaster resilience within critical sectors (such as education, health, and water) and seeking to create a sustainable source of contingent financing that is owned by the region and leverages contributions from a broad group of development partners.

She joined ADB in 2005 following a period as Economic Adviser with the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat in Suva, Fiji. Prior to this she held various positions in the Australian commonwealth public service, predominantly in economic research. She completed a double degree in agricultural science and economics from the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia and holds a master’s degree in economics from the University of New England, Armidale, Australia.

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