disaster risk financing

The World Bank has now confirmed that it has partnered with Nepal to explore the issuance of a parametric earthquake catastrophe bond for the country.

According to reports from Nepalese news sources, the country’s government Council of Ministers has approved signing a Mandate Agreement for the Nepal Earthquake Catastrophe Bond project with the World Bank.

A trend towards smaller catastrophe bond issues becoming more feasible as market infrastructure improves has been highlighted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), who suggest that what they term micro-catastrophe bonds have relevant application in disaster risk financing initiatives.

The World Bank has begun work on a proposed project to deliver a parametric earthquake catastrophe bond for Nepal, targeting US $80 million to US $190 million of fully-collateralized disaster risk financing from the capital markets for the South Asian country.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has hired Samantha Cook from the World Bank, who brings deep experience in disaster risk insurance arrangements, including parametric risk transfer and instruments such as catastrophe bonds.

A proposal published by the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) calls for a natural catastrophe insurance system that includes pooling private risks, strengthening disaster risk management, and the use of catastrophe bonds to support catastrophe reinsurance availability for Europe.

The World Bank has approved the Regional Emergency Preparedness and Inclusive Recovery Program (REPAIR), which is designed to boost financial resilience against climate shocks for Eastern and Southern African countries and leverages private market parametric disaster insurance risk transfer alongside its contingent credit DDO solution.

The World Bank is reportedly aiming to issue its first drought catastrophe bond over the next 12 – 18 months, which would most likely be focused on Africa, George Richardson, director of the capital markets and investment department at the World Bank Treasury, told Reuters.

The World Bank has now facilitated and issued over US $4.8 billion in catastrophe bonds across 17 transactions we have covered over the years, with $745 million issued over the course of just a few weeks in 2024 to support Mexico and Jamaica’s disaster risk transfer and financing needs.

Leaders of 10 multilateral development banks (MDB’s) announced steps to collaborate more effectively to increase the impact and scale of their work, in order to tackle urgent development challenges, including addressing the growing need for disaster risk insurance and in climate risk financing.