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09 October 2020

Three Ways to Enhance Online Knowledge Exchange During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic caught Benedikt Signer off guard. He had to pivot from his carefully planned two-day workshop on public asset insurance to a fully virtual 10-part webinar series. Despite being an experienced trainer, Benedikt found this shift challenging; virtual interactions with his audience felt very different from the face-to-face interactions he was used to. “In-person workshops allow you to read the room, which helps the dialogue flow more naturally,” Benedikt explained. “The... Keep reading

Featured Authors

Tatiana Skalon

Financial Sector Specialist

World Bank Group

Tatiana Skalon is a Financial Sector Specialist with the World Bank Crisis and Disaster Risk Finance team at the Finance, Competitiveness and Innovations Global Practice. Her key projects are in the regions of Europe and Central Asia, South Asia and East Asia and Pacific. Over the past two years, she increasingly worked on public financial management of disasters. This comprises, for example, the COVID-19 expenditure analysis aimed to understand the cost of ad hoc financial management of the pandemic and Public Expenditure Review on post-disaster spending in the Philippines. Tatiana also works on development of disaster risk finance strategies, public assets data systems and sovereign disaster risk finance. She holds a MSc in Comparative Law, Economics and Finance from IUC of Turin and a PhD in Risk and Emergency Management from IUSS Pavia.

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John Plevin

Senior 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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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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Tenin Fatimata Dicko

Senior Financial Sector Specialist

World Bank Group

Tenin Fatimata Dicko is a Senior Financial Sector Specialist working with Crisis and Disaster Risk Finance global team at the World Bank. Within the Bank, she works financial inclusion with a focus on the microfinance sector, agriculture finance and insurance and sovereign disaster risk finance in Africa, MNA, and South Asia. Prior to joining the Bank, Fatima was the Sr Program Officer of the Rural Resilience Initiative (R4) a joint program of WFP and Oxfam providing a package of financial products (index insurance, credit, and savings) to smallholders in Senegal. She also worked with the International Research Group on Financial and Fiduciary Ethics in Montreal on the social performance of corporate and cooperative banks. She holds a degree in Finance from HEC Montreal and an MBA from the University of Quebec in Montreal. Fatima is originally from Mali and is fluent in French and English.

She assists clients in their efforts to strengthen their microfinance sector to become a strong pillar of financial inclusion, the development of agriculture finance & insurance solutions to unlock access to finance for smallholders and solutions to strengthen countries' financial resilience to disasters.

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Midori Makino

Lead Water Supply and Sanitation Specialist

World Bank Group

Midori is Lead Water Supply and Sanitation Specialist for the Water Global Practice, covering the Latin America and the Caribbean Region at the World Bank. She has over 20 years of experience, working across water and infrastructure sectors in multiple regions including Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where she has managed investment operations and analytical work in a number of countries. Midori has experience leading and coordinating on multiple global and regional initiatives in the World Bank’s water sector, including the knowledge management of the Financial Innovation Team, Rural and Small Town Water and Sanitation thematic group, and Regional Analytics working group. Midori holds an MBA from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Master of Science in Economics from Stockholm School of Economics.

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Simon Hagemann

Financial Sector Specialist

World Bank Group

Simon is a Financial Sector Specialist in the World Bank’s Crisis & Disaster Risk Finance global team. His key projects include work on the Global Risk Financing Facility (GRiF), as well as work in the Sahel (Niger, Senegal) and in Asia and the Pacific (Nepal, PCRAFI). Simon has also been leading the team’s engagement with international partners including the G20/V20-led InsuResilience Global Partnership and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. In his new capacity, Simon will work on the new Risk Finance Umbrella, the Global Risk Financing Facility, and he will continue working with international donors and partners.

Prior to joining the Bank, Simon worked on disaster risk finance and insurance as a Senior Policy Officer with the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). He also held various positions in climate and environment, working with the Bank in DC on climate and forestry in Africa, and on climate adaptation with the United Nations Development Programme around Africa.

Simon holds a master’s degree in International Relations from the Institut d’etudes politiques (France) as well as undergraduate degrees in Economics and International Relations from the Institut d’etudes politiques and the European University Frankfurt (Germany). He is fluent in German, English and French.

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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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Hang Thu Vu

Senior Financial Sector Specialist

World Bank Group

Hang Thu Vu is a Senior 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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Olivier Mahul

Practice Manager, Crisis and Disaster Risk Finance

World Bank Group

Olivier is an economist and global expert in decision theory under uncertainty, with applications in development economics, climate finance and disaster risk finance and insurance. Olivier leads the development of innovative (parametric) sovereign risk finance and insurance solutions. He is one of the main architects of sovereign catastrophe risk pools such as the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF), the Pacific Catastrophe Risk Insurance Company (PCRIC) and the Southeast Asia Disaster Risk Insurance Facility (SEADRIF). He also co-designed the first sovereign contingent credit line against disasters.

Olivier currently leads the Crisis & Disaster Risk Finance Unit and its Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance Program (DRFIP) at the World Bank, which offers analytical and advisory services for policy reforms and financial instruments against climate shocks, disasters and a wider range of crises in more than 60 emerging and developing countries all over the globe.

Olivier also co-chairs the Operations Committee of the Insurance Development Forum (IDF), and the working group on Climate Physical Risks of the Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System (NGFS).

Olivier holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Toulouse School of Economics and post-doctorates from Wharton Business School and University of California at Berkeley. Olivier has authored more than 40 publications in international journals and two books: “Catastrophe Risk Financing in Developing Countries: Principles for Public Intervention” (with J. David Cummins) and “Government Support to Agricultural Insurance: Challenges and Options for Developing Countries” (with Charles Stutley).

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Benedikt Signer

Program Coordinator

World Bank Group

Benedikt Signer is a Program Coordinator in the Disaster Risk Finance and Insurance Program, housed in the Finance, Competitiveness, and Innovation Global Practice. Benedikt has supported over 20 countries to more actively manage the potential losses from climate and disaster shocks. This includes the development of Asia’s first multi-country risk financing mechanism, implementing the Philippine's Financial Protection Strategy, establishing a dedicated risk management unit in Serbia’s ministry of finance and co-leading the setting up of the World Bank’s first contingent line of credit to protect against disasters in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Benedikt has also launched multiple new initiatives including a training program reaching over 2000 people in 35 countries, a new partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation, and supported the 2016 G20 presidency leading to the establishment of the InsuResilience Global Partnership. Previously, Benedikt worked at the World Bank’s Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) on strategy, program development, and policy partnerships. He has a Master's degree in Global Politics from the London School of Economics.

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Jean Pesme

Global Director, Finance, Competitiveness & Innovation (FCI) Global Practice

World Bank Group

As Global Director, Finance in the Finance, Competitiveness & Innovation (FCI) Global Practice, Jean leads the World Bank’s work to promote the development of sound, stable, sustainable, and inclusive financial systems. His global team of experts works with governments and partners to make financial systems more resilient, to open access to finance for poor and vulnerable people, to support economic activity and to develop financial markets. Their strategy and its implementation emphasize development of digital financial services, addressing climate change and sustainable finance and creating opportunities for women by bolstering their financial inclusion.

Previously, Jean led the World Bank’s Financial Stability and Integrity global team, which assists countries in building and restoring robust and resilient financial systems operating with integrity, transparency and in compliance with international standards and recommendations. He has extensive experience working on financial sector issues, notably in the Middle East and North Africa.

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Antoine Bavandi

Climate, Crisis & Disaster Risk Finance Specialist

World Bank Group

Antoine Bavandi is a senior risk finance specialist with the Crisis and Disaster Risk Finance team at The World Bank. In this role, he advises developing countries on designing and implementing disaster risk financing and insurance solutions through analytical work and policy dialogue. Key activities include developing customized financial products with Ministries of Finance to strenghten financial resilience to climate, crisis and disaster risks. A catastrophe risk modeling and management expert, Antoine 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.

Antoine Bavandi est spécialiste senior en gestion financière des risques de crise et de catastrophe naturelle à la Banque mondiale. Il conseille les pays en voie de développement dans la mise en œuvre de solutions de financement et d'assurance des risques tant sur les aspects d’analyse que de politiques de développement. En collaboration avec les Ministères des Finances, il conçoit des solutions d'amélioration de la résilience financière des économies et des populations aux risques de crises et de catastrophes. Expert en modélisation et gestion des risques, Antoine a travaillé pour les Lloyd's de Londres, Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty et l'Agence spatiale européenne. Il est diplômé de l'École Centrale, de l'Imperial College et de l'Université de Stanford.

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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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Maleshoane Lekomola-Danziger

Budget Controller

Ministry of Finance, Lesotho

Mrs Maleshoane Lekomola-Danziger holds a Masters’ Degree in International Economics and Trade. She is currently the Budget Controller for the Government of Lesotho and has been working for the Ministry of Finance-Budget Department for over 16 years. Throughout her career, she has served in the Public Financial Management field and currently her primary responsibility is to ensure that the budget management requirements are met and managed properly for all the government operations and activities.

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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 $280m 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 countries across Asia and Africa 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 Africa and the Caribbean.

Prior to joining the Bank, she worked as an Urban Development Economist at AECOM, where she also worked on a redevelopment strategy for the city of Miyako in Japan for economic recovery post the 2011 Tsunami.

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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Kaavya Ashok Krishna

Senior Financial Sector Specialist

World Bank Group

Kaavya Ashok Krishna a Senior Financial Sector Specialist working in the Finance, Competitiveness, and Innovation (FCI) Global Practice based in Washington Dc. She leads Capacity Strengthening, Knowledge exchange, and Communications on Crisis and Disaster Risk Financing (CDRF). Kaavya launched the Financial Protection Academy which has trained over 30,000 clients from 60+ countries in CDRF. She has previously worked in leadership development and marketing roles at The United Nations, Warner Bros Media, The Indian Express, Sify and Ogilvy, and Mather. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Communications from the University of Madras, a Master’s degree in Technology and Learning from Harvard University.

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Martin Luis Alton

Senior Financial Sector Specialist

World Bank Group

Luis Alton, an Austrian national, is a Senior Financial Sector 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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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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Markus Enenkel

Senior Consultant

World Bank Group

Markus Enenkel has a background in satellite earth observation, disaster risk management and humanitarian decision-support. He supports the World Bank’s Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance Program focusing on the Next Generation Drought Index project and related activities in the area of extreme climate, food insecurity and conflict. Prior to joining the World Bank, Markus Enenkel coordinated or supported the disaster risk management activities of several humanitarian and development aid organizations in Latin America, Africa and Asia. He is currently a coordinating lead author of the upcoming UN Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction and was selected to represent Austria in the Group on Earth Observations’ disaster risk reduction working group. Mr. Enenkel holds a PhD in microwave remote sensing from Vienna University of Technology and completed his post-doc at Columbia University.

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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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Tatiana Skalon

John Plevin

Evie Calcutt

Tenin Fatimata Dicko

Midori Makino

Simon Hagemann

Samantha Cook

Hang Thu Vu

Olivier Mahul

Benedikt Signer

Jean Pesme

Antoine Bavandi

Cathy Ansell

Maleshoane Lekomola-Danziger

Sumati Rajput

Kaavya Ashok Krishna

Martin Luis Alton

Samuel Munzele Maimbo

Alfonso Garcia-Mora

Markus Enenkel

Hanna Uusimaa

Emma M. Veve

Ceyla Pazarbasioglu