Reducing Disaster Risks from Natural Hazards : An Evaluation of the World Bank’s Support, Fiscal Years 2010–20

Disasters caused by natural hazards are increasingly threatening the lives and livelihoods of the world’s poor and disaster-vulnerable populations. Climate change is further exacerbating the negative impacts of disasters caused by natural hazards....

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Main Author: Independent Evaluation Group
Format: Report
Language:English
en_US
Published: World Bank, Washington, DC 2022
Subjects:
Online Access:http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099414108242210628/IDU0ae4c44f709826043d80b6ac0dc408e93169a
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37921
id okr-10986-37921
recordtype oai_dc
spelling okr-10986-379212022-08-25T05:10:38Z Reducing Disaster Risks from Natural Hazards : An Evaluation of the World Bank’s Support, Fiscal Years 2010–20 Independent Evaluation Group DISASTER RISK REDUCTION NATURAL HAZARDS COUNTRY ENGAGEMENT ROLE OF NON-LENDING INSTITUTIONAL ALIGNMENT VULNERABLE GROUPS Disasters caused by natural hazards are increasingly threatening the lives and livelihoods of the world’s poor and disaster-vulnerable populations. Climate change is further exacerbating the negative impacts of disasters caused by natural hazards. Investing in disaster risk reduction (DRR) has strong economic and social benefits and is essential for achieving climate change adaptation. IEG's evaluation shows that the World Bank is successfully supporting clients to increasingly take up DRR actions through strategic and comprehensive country engagement. The World Bank has developed an extensive portfolio of DRR activities, tripling its support over FY10-20. It focuses its DRR work on countries with the most serious natural hazards, uses synergistic pillars of DRR engagement, and increasingly mainstreams DRR into sector operations. Support for DRR in IDA, small island developing states, and IDA-FCV countries has been comprehensive. The Bank has also shifted from post-disaster response toward pre-disaster risk reduction. The Bank has shown that it is able to overcome political and financial constraints to DRR client uptake by engaging the right decision makers using rigorous evidence and by building on disaster reconstruction efforts. Analytical work that quantified risks, assessed costs and benefits and communicates impacts has highly influenced DRR uptake. However, there are gaps in coverage for some regions, sectors, and hazards that require attention. There are DRR coverage gaps in Europe and Central Asia and the Middle East and North Africa for all serious hazards. Also, while the World Bank is conducting analytical work on the needs of disaster vulnerable groups, there has been slow progress on incorporating their needs into operations. There are also missed opportunities to use conflict-sensitive approaches to mitigate conflict risks and pursue peace-building. Also, the Bank’s frequent inability to demonstrate the effects of its DRR activities on reduced exposure and vulnerability has consequences on its ability to make a development case for risk reduction. Most DRR operations are not providing sufficient information to establish the level of DRR being achieved, inhibiting an understanding of how DRR contributes to development impacts, such as reduced economic loss and mortality. IEG offers the World Bank four recommendations to improve their performance on disaster risk reduction: (i) Incorporate DRR activities in regions and sectors and for hazards that exhibit significant coverage gaps. (ii) Identify and measure the effects of DRR activities on exposure and vulnerability to strengthen the development case for clients facing serious disaster risks. (iii) Integrate the needs of populations disproportionately vulnerable to disasters caused by natural hazards into DRR project targeting and design, implementation, and results reporting. (iv) In countries affected by serious natural hazards and fragility and conflict risks, identify and assess the ways in which hazards and conflict interrelate and use this to inform country engagement and project design. 2022-08-24T19:11:06Z 2022-08-24T19:11:06Z 2022-08-24 Report http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099414108242210628/IDU0ae4c44f709826043d80b6ac0dc408e93169a http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37921 English en_US CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Annual Reports & Independent Evaluations Annual Reports & Independent Evaluations :: IEG Independent Evaluations & Annual Reviews World
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
language English
en_US
topic DISASTER RISK REDUCTION
NATURAL HAZARDS
COUNTRY ENGAGEMENT
ROLE OF NON-LENDING
INSTITUTIONAL ALIGNMENT
VULNERABLE GROUPS
spellingShingle DISASTER RISK REDUCTION
NATURAL HAZARDS
COUNTRY ENGAGEMENT
ROLE OF NON-LENDING
INSTITUTIONAL ALIGNMENT
VULNERABLE GROUPS
Independent Evaluation Group
Reducing Disaster Risks from Natural Hazards : An Evaluation of the World Bank’s Support, Fiscal Years 2010–20
geographic_facet World
description Disasters caused by natural hazards are increasingly threatening the lives and livelihoods of the world’s poor and disaster-vulnerable populations. Climate change is further exacerbating the negative impacts of disasters caused by natural hazards. Investing in disaster risk reduction (DRR) has strong economic and social benefits and is essential for achieving climate change adaptation. IEG's evaluation shows that the World Bank is successfully supporting clients to increasingly take up DRR actions through strategic and comprehensive country engagement. The World Bank has developed an extensive portfolio of DRR activities, tripling its support over FY10-20. It focuses its DRR work on countries with the most serious natural hazards, uses synergistic pillars of DRR engagement, and increasingly mainstreams DRR into sector operations. Support for DRR in IDA, small island developing states, and IDA-FCV countries has been comprehensive. The Bank has also shifted from post-disaster response toward pre-disaster risk reduction. The Bank has shown that it is able to overcome political and financial constraints to DRR client uptake by engaging the right decision makers using rigorous evidence and by building on disaster reconstruction efforts. Analytical work that quantified risks, assessed costs and benefits and communicates impacts has highly influenced DRR uptake. However, there are gaps in coverage for some regions, sectors, and hazards that require attention. There are DRR coverage gaps in Europe and Central Asia and the Middle East and North Africa for all serious hazards. Also, while the World Bank is conducting analytical work on the needs of disaster vulnerable groups, there has been slow progress on incorporating their needs into operations. There are also missed opportunities to use conflict-sensitive approaches to mitigate conflict risks and pursue peace-building. Also, the Bank’s frequent inability to demonstrate the effects of its DRR activities on reduced exposure and vulnerability has consequences on its ability to make a development case for risk reduction. Most DRR operations are not providing sufficient information to establish the level of DRR being achieved, inhibiting an understanding of how DRR contributes to development impacts, such as reduced economic loss and mortality. IEG offers the World Bank four recommendations to improve their performance on disaster risk reduction: (i) Incorporate DRR activities in regions and sectors and for hazards that exhibit significant coverage gaps. (ii) Identify and measure the effects of DRR activities on exposure and vulnerability to strengthen the development case for clients facing serious disaster risks. (iii) Integrate the needs of populations disproportionately vulnerable to disasters caused by natural hazards into DRR project targeting and design, implementation, and results reporting. (iv) In countries affected by serious natural hazards and fragility and conflict risks, identify and assess the ways in which hazards and conflict interrelate and use this to inform country engagement and project design.
format Report
author Independent Evaluation Group
author_facet Independent Evaluation Group
author_sort Independent Evaluation Group
title Reducing Disaster Risks from Natural Hazards : An Evaluation of the World Bank’s Support, Fiscal Years 2010–20
title_short Reducing Disaster Risks from Natural Hazards : An Evaluation of the World Bank’s Support, Fiscal Years 2010–20
title_full Reducing Disaster Risks from Natural Hazards : An Evaluation of the World Bank’s Support, Fiscal Years 2010–20
title_fullStr Reducing Disaster Risks from Natural Hazards : An Evaluation of the World Bank’s Support, Fiscal Years 2010–20
title_full_unstemmed Reducing Disaster Risks from Natural Hazards : An Evaluation of the World Bank’s Support, Fiscal Years 2010–20
title_sort reducing disaster risks from natural hazards : an evaluation of the world bank’s support, fiscal years 2010–20
publisher World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate 2022
url http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099414108242210628/IDU0ae4c44f709826043d80b6ac0dc408e93169a
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37921
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