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13 August 2020

Photo Credit: ESA/WSF. Urban sprawl in Shanghai, China, 1985–2015. The satellite image highlights areas of rapid, uncontrolled demographic growth.

Five Ways Satellite Data Can Help Prepare for the Unexpected

In a world turned upside down by the Covid-19 pandemic, the role of satellite imagery has never been so critical. At any time, more than 2,000 satellites are orbiting our planet. They help us communicate, locate, and gather data about complex, interconnected crises that require constant, comprehensive, and global monitoring. Satellite applications are particularly relevant for disaster risk management and financial preparedness, in which early and reliable information is key in ensuring a... Keep reading

Featured Authors

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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Antoine Bavandi

Senior Financial Sector Specialist

World Bank Group

Antoine Bavandi is a senior specialist with the World Bank’s Crisis and Disaster Risk Finance team. In his role, he advises developing countries on financial solutions to a broad range of crises, including through analytical work and policy dialogue, primarily in West and North Africa and in the Middle East. Prior to joining the World Bank, Antoine held various roles spanning underwriting, portfolio management and risk modelling, and has worked at Lloyd’s of London, Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty and the European Space Agency. He holds degrees from École Centrale, Imperial College and Stanford University.

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John Plevin

Financial Sector Specialist

World Bank Group

John Plevin is a Financial Sector Specialist working with Crisis and Disaster Risk Finance global team at the World Bank. John works in countries across the world to develop financial protection programs for governments, businesses and vulnerable households. He leads the Agriculture Insurance Development Program which supports governments to build public-private partnerships for financial protection against agricultural risks. Prior to joining the World Bank, he worked in the UK financial sector before working for the UK Government, advising Ministries and developing programs for the financial management of risk. John is a Fellow of the UK Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and holds a First Class degree in Mathematics from the University of Edinburgh.

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Hang Thu Vu

Financial Sector Specialist

World Bank Group

Hang Thu Vu is a Financial Sector Specialist in the Crises and Disaster Risk Finance global unit of the World Bank’s Finance, Competitiveness and Innovation Global Practice. She has more than 15 years of experience working in both the public and private sector on risk finance and insurance, non-bank financial institutions, financial inclusion and other development topics in East Asia, Eastern Europe, and North America. She holds a bachelor of economics from Hanoi Foreign Trade University, obtained a masters of economics from the University of Leeds, UK as a Chevening scholar, and completed the finance and management graduate program at Boston University as a Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow.

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Martin Luis Alton

Financial Sector Specialist

World Bank Group

Luis Alton, an Austrian national, is a Specialist at the World Bank’s Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance Program where his work focuses on integrating disaster related fiscal risk into public finance frameworks; and on designing and implementing financial solutions that increase countries’ access to liquidity after disasters. Mr. Alton has been working on public finance issues for eleven years, of which two at the Ministry of Finance of Zanzibar (as an Overseas Development Institute Fellow) and nine at the World Bank. He holds a BSc from the London School of Economics and an MSc from University College London (both in Economics).

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Samuel Munzele Maimbo

Director of the IDA Resource Mobilization and IBRD Corporate Finance, Development Finance

World Bank Group

Samuel Munzele Maimbo is the Director of the International Development Association (IDA) Resource Mobilization and International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) Corporate Finance department at the World Bank. In his role, Mr. Maimbo is responsible for the implementation of IDA’s hybrid financial model and the policy analysis of IBRD income and corporate finance.

Prior to this, Mr. Maimbo was Senior Advisor in the Office of the Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer. He has also worked on a diverse range of operations and countries and held various positions in the Finance Markets and Innovations Global Practice, including Financial Sector Specialist (South Asia Region, Africa Region, and Europe and Central Asia Region); Practice Manager for Strategy and Operations; and Practice Manager for Long-Term Finance & Risk Management (Agriculture Finance & Insurance, Capital Market Development, Disaster Risk Finance, Housing Finance, Infrastructure Finance, Pensions & Insurance, and Climate Finance).

Before joining the World Bank, Mr. Maimbo held the position of Bank Inspector at the Bank of Zambia and Auditor at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC). Mr. Maimbo holds a Ph.D. in Public Administration (Banking) from the University of Manchester, an MBA in Finance from the University of Nottingham, a BSc. in Accounting from Copperbelt University, Zambia, and is a Fellow Chartered Certified Accountant (FCCA, UK).

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Samantha Cook

Senior Financial Sector Specialist

World Bank Group

Samantha Cook is a Senior Financial Sector Specialist within the Crisis and Disaster Risk Financing team in the FCI. Her role focuses on the development of integrated disaster risk financing and insurance solutions leveraging best practices in public financial management. Ms. Cook was instrumental in the establishment of the Pacific Catastrophe Risk Insurance Company, a risk pool established to help the Pacific Islands meet their post-disaster liquidity needs. Ms. Cook coordinates the crisis and disaster risk management program in South Asia and manages the Trust fund for supporting disaster risk finance solutions in middle-income countries financed by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs. Ms. Cook began her career as an economist in investment and then central banking and was a fellow for the Overseas Development Institute.

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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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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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Ceyla Pazarbasioglu

Vice President

EFI Practice Group

See posts by Ceyla Pazarbasioglu

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Our Blog

Five Ways Satellite Data Can Help Prepare for the Unexpected

Evie Calcutt

Antoine Bavandi

John Plevin

Hang Thu Vu

Martin Luis Alton

Samuel Munzele Maimbo

Samantha Cook

Cathy Ansell

Sumati Rajput

Alfonso Garcia-Mora

Hanna Uusimaa

Emma M. Veve

Ceyla Pazarbasioglu