[DRF Training] A Series of Training Sessions on Fiscal Risk Assessment of Disasters in Georgia

A series of training sessions on fiscal/financial risk assessment of disasters was provided to the Ministry of Finance of Georgia (MoF) during December 2020 and April 2021. The objective of the training was to support the Government of Georgia in understanding the fiscal/financial impacts of disasters and inform their improvement of the fiscal risk statement as it relates to disaster and climate shocks. The training was part of the technical assistance under the WB-SECO program on sovereign disaster risk finance solutions for middle income countries and was organized by the World Bank team comprising Yiao Yu (Actuarial Consultant, Crisis and Disaster Risk Finance (CDRF), WBG), Thu Hang Vu (Senior Financial Sector Specialist, CDRF, WBG), Tatiana Skalon (Extended Term Consultant, CDRF, WBG) and Lasha Gotsiridze (Senior Consultant, CDRF, WBG). Over 20 government clients in Georgia attended the virtual training series.

The first session focused on Tool 1 and how this tool could be used to generate a risk profile for key disasters. The online tool comes with a user guide for further details on the calculations and provides guides on how to troubleshoot common issues when using the tool. The key focus of the second training session was to demonstrate how the Financial Risk Response Tool could be used to help analyze different strategies in a disaster risk financing context. The why, what, and how of DRF was discussed with an explanation of how Tool 2 could be used within this framework.

The training was built upon a preliminary financial risk assessment against disaster risk conducted together with the MoF and upon the government’s request for support to build their understanding around key statistical concepts underlying the Bank’s Financial Risk Assessment tool (“Tool 1”) and Financial Risk Response (“Tool 2”) and how this could assist in their development of a risk finance strategy in the medium term. This was a second pilot of the tools following a methodological process and after the government staff have taken the online analytics training. As the next steps, the team aims to arrange more training sessions upon request by the client countries.

Photo: Mtskheta, the old capital of Georgia. Photo Credit: Tamar Kobakhidze / World Bank