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Many of the world’s populations are vulnerable to climate shocks – to drought, flooding, irregular rainfall and natural disasters. For these countries, cities and communities, index-based insurance is a critical risk-management tool which allows victims of such shocks to continue to have access to finance and to build resilience against future risks. Index, or parametric, insurance pays out benefits based on a pre-determined index for the loss of assets and investments as a result of weather or...

When an event like the flooding in Louisiana takes place, destroying homes and disrupting and ending lives, media coverage shifts to a sober note. But the images of destruction and film reels of heroic rescuers suggest another, disconcerting dimension to catastrophe: disaster is a form of entertainment. It focuses attention, concentrates minds, and stimulates emotions. This is true in fiction, from The War of the Worlds to The Walking Dead. It’s also true in reality, where popular consciousness...

Since natural disasters can strike anywhere and anytime, making far-sighted preparations is much more effective than scrambling to respond to a crisis. I recognized this after Hurricane Mitch ravaged Honduras and my grandmother had to be evacuated because the local river swelled to the second floor of her home. As climate change intensifies extreme weather events across much of the planet, countries are seeking the World Bank Group’s support to improve both their physical and financial...

Since natural disasters can strike anywhere and anytime, making far-sighted preparations is much more effective than scrambling to respond to a crisis. I recognized this after Hurricane Mitch ravaged Honduras and my grandmother had to be evacuated because the local river swelled to the second floor of her home. As climate change intensifies extreme weather events across much of the planet, countries are seeking the World Bank Group’s support to improve both their physical and financial...

Start Network's Emily Montier discusses new book Dull Disasters: how planning ahead will make a difference. Response to disasters should involve careful risk management, rather than the current emotional, headline-grabbing state of affairs. This is what the authors of a new book ‘Dull Disasters’ are advocating for. Daniel Clarke (World Bank) and Stefan Dercon (Chief Economist at DFID) argue that failures in aid coordination and inefficiencies can be traced back to poor pre-disaster planning...

I was recently at the Novafrica conference in Lisbon, where one of the keynote talks was given by Stefan Dercon. He based it around a newly released short book he has written with Daniel Clarke, called Dull Disasters ( open access version). The title is meant to indicate both the aim to make dealing with disasters a dull event rather than media circus, as well as to discuss ways to ‘dull’ or reduce the impact of disasters. Stefan started his talk by noting that disaster relief may well be the...

As actuaries working in development, my colleagues and I in the Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance Program ( DRFIP) are constantly looking for innovative ways to apply actuarial science in the fight against poverty. Because the DRFIP is a fairly new initiative — it was established in 2010 to improve the financial resilience of governments, businesses and households against natural disasters — a lot of questions are still to be asked, and lessons to be learned, about helping client countries...