disaster risk financing

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.

The European Central Bank (ECB) alongside a macro-prudential oversight body it operates, the European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB), has called for greater use of catastrophe bonds to address the insurance protection gap and mitigate catastrophe risks from climate change in the European Union.

The African Risk Capacity (ARC) has designed a parametric risk transfer solution that will be integrated with a World Bank designed social protection program for Malawi, to provide emergency financing in response to drought conditions in the country.

Broking group Aon and the Lloyd’s Disaster Risk Facility have developed a reinsurance product to support an International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and Centre for Disaster Protection designed approach to disaster response.