26.02.2018

Understanding Risk for Financial Resilience – Partnership Day

Background
Understanding risk is central to all risk financing and insurance decisions. This however, is only possible if data analytics and risk information is available and accessible to policy makers, equipping them to pick the right set of financial instruments for the risks they face. Data feeds into the entire spectrum of development and implementation of risk financing strategies. For example, private sector has been using data on natural hazard, exposure, and vulnerability to quantify and manage risk accumulations for over two decades. Risk information also plays a pivotal role for targeting beneficiaries, channeling funds, and determining appropriate values for payouts and cash transfers after disasters.
In general access to good data is the foundation of large scale, pre-arranged comprehensive financial packages that support countries to respond rapidly and effectively to disasters, managing climate and disaster risk rapidly and more effectively. The community built and the ideas inspired through such events will contribute to global analytical work and country operations for scaling up disaster risk financing and insurance, including through programs implemented under the InsuResilience Program Alliance.

Objective
Through the Understanding Risk for Financial Resilience – Partnership Day, participants will explore the role of risk information across core technical steps that the government follows while implementing financial resilience solutions to manage the financial impact of risk. These steps include: assessing risks, arranging financial solutions, and delivering funds to beneficiaries. Discussion will focus on key questions, including:
1. What are gaps and lessons learned in countries for using information in navigating the technical steps of assessing risks, arranging financial solutions, and delivering support to beneficiaries?
2. What are innovative mechanisms that the private sector or other players use for data collection and analytics that can help countries advance on assessing their risks?
3. Once risks are identified, how does data and information enable financial solutions and where are opportunities to push beyond what already exists design new products that meet country needs?
4. What role can better use of risk information play in rethinking mechanisms to deliver funds to beneficiaries?

Format: This will be a full day side event. There will be a short interactive opening session followed by two parallel sessions before lunch, so the audience can select the session of their choice. After lunch, participants can either participate in the ‘training track’ or continue with the ‘conference track’. The agenda provides more details.
Audience: The event will convene participants from partner countries – donors as well as clients; experts from the private sector – including risk modelers, risk assessment specialists, financial and insurance sector specialists; experts from the academic and research community; as well as representatives from multi-national organizations, NGOs, and civil society. Sessions are being organized by 10+ partners.

Overall Side Event coordinators: For any additional information on the event, please contact: Jack Campbell (jcampbell2@worldbank.org); and Sumati Rajput (srajput1@worldbank.org)

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