This is a slide presentation that details ex ante risk financing for weather-related (including El Nino, flood and drought) in countries such as Vietnam, Mexico, Morocco, Romania, Ethiopia, India, Mongolia and Peru. This presentation details what the poor have to pay and the poverty traps they fall into at the hands of such weather related catastrophes, and then also details the costs to governments, in turn making the case for ex ante risk financing as a public policy option, and the problems with ad hoc responses to natural disasters as opposed to ex ante financing for these risks, including reserves/savings, contingent credit, indemnity-based insurance, and index-based insurance/catastrophe bonds.