November 2013: Building climate resilience is critical to eliminate extreme poverty and achieve shared prosperity by 2030, according to a World Bank report titled ‘Building Resilience: Integrating Climate and Disaster Risk into Development.’ The report presents the World Bank’s experience in climate and disaster resilient development, including case studies on mainstreaming, risk identification, risk reduction, preparedness, financial and social protection, resilient reconstruction and costs, and aims to contribute to discussions on loss and damage.

Unless vulnerable and poor nations, regions and cities receive support to prepare and adapt to current and future climate and disaster risks, decades of development progress could be reversed, according to the report. It notes climate change is already increasing inequality and states climate-related impacts will be felt most by the poor and marginalized, who generally live in high-risk areas and have low capacity to recover from recurrent, low-intensity events.

The report cautions that resilience requires a high initial investment, explaining that safer structures “typically cost 10 to 50% more to build.” It outlines the costs of “building back better” in the agriculture, communication, education, electricity, health, housing, transport and water and sanitation sectors. The report emphasizes that these start-up costs pay off in the long-term.

The report states that “getting the institutions and incentives right” is the most important issue in climate and disaster resilient development. It recommends an integrated, multi-stakeholder, multi-sector approach and a lead institution with the authority to coordinate powerful sectoral ministries. The report further recommends, inter alia: closer collaboration between the climate resilience and disaster risk management communities; mainstreaming climate and disaster resilience in sectoral budgets and programmes; and ensuring adequate, predictable and long-term financing, including engaging the private sector through public-private partnerships.

The report includes an introduction, conclusion and sections on: rising disasters in a changing world; climate and the poor; resilience and costs; climate and disaster resilient development; and the World Bank experience. The World Bank and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) collaborated on the report. [World Bank Press Release] [Publication: Building Resilience: Integrating Climate and Disaster Risk into Development]