Toward a Regional Approach to Disaster Risk Finance in Asia

Asia is at high risk of catastrophic disaster and climate shocks that cause damage and erode welfare and economic gains. Financial protection strategies have been recognised by countries and their development partners as important tools to protect countries from these eects and to thereby support them in reducing poverty and increasing shared prosperity. Several Asian countries are active in strengthening their nancial resilience. Any regional initiative should build on existing work. Some countries have already been working on national strategies to better manage the cost of disasters. Knowledge gained through World Bank support to countries, dialogue in the region, and recent disasters suggests that countries’ current priorities for use of nancial instruments can be placed in three broad categories: access to rapid disaster response nancing (and deployment of rapid response funds at the subnational level and to households); property catastrophe risk insurance for public assets; property catastrophe risk insurance for private assets.