Every year, disasters cause an average of $300 billion in economic losses. But these numbers don’t tell the full story: Middle Income countries suffer the worst impacts relative to GDP as booming economic growth and rapid urbanization, and infrastructure development put more and more assets at risk. Across the world, the poor and vulnerable suffer devastating impacts that can affect their ability to thrive and lift themselves out of poverty.
To support these efforts to strengthen financial resilience against natural disasters, Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and the World Bank (WB) have joined efforts since 2012 through a program dedicated to middle-income countries vulnerable to the impacts of disasters. This Knowledge Exchange Series aims to empower governments supported under the SECO program to increase their financial resilience against natural disasters and their capacity to meet post-disaster funding needs, which are key to better managing their contingent liabilities related to natural disasters and become more effective risk managers.
The fourth webinar in this certification series will discuss the importance and considerations of sovereign risk transfer instruments such as public asset insurance, agricultural insurance, and sovereign catastrophe risk pools. We will learn from real world case studies from countries such as Indonesia, South Africa and Japan about their experience in the establishment and implementation of this financial instrument.