Financing Long Term Resilience

 11:45h – 13:15h CET
 26 November 2021
 EFDRR Virtual Platform
 Virtual 

Disaster risk is a systemic issue. When a disaster strikes, it often further divides societies  and has unequal impacts leading to greater inequality. This was a key lesson from the 2008  financial crisis. 

There are degrees of financial vulnerability to disasters, from sectors and supply chains at  risk from specific hazards like flooding and earthquakes to the entire economy impacted by  a pandemic, as COVID-19 as show us. Across all disaster risk, inequality is a crucial issue  in addressing financing resilience. It is important therefore to lead in shift in understanding  disaster resilience as a core public good to ensure that no one is left behind. There is a  strong need for a new “social contract” on investing in disaster resilience setting out the  responsibilities and liabilities of public and private bodies. 

There has been good progress on financial disclosure of physical climate risk. However,  there is a crucial difference between risk disclosure and truly incentivizing investment in  resilience. Accelerated investment in disaster resilience is now urgently needed, ensuring  risk is taken into account in strategic planning and public budgeting. 

A major challenge is that the investment needed to ensure society is disaster resilience  is enormous, and likely runs into trillions of Euros. While companies and investors are  increasingly engaged in the low carbon transition, it is harder to build the business case  for disaster resilience and climate adaptation. This is because many of the measures  are project based, bottom up and often are investing to avoid future costs rather than to  generate a return on investment. 

The better integration of risk can protect the most vulnerable and reduce financial risk  from regions that are especially vulnerable to disaster risk. Building disaster resilient  infrastructure and SMEs is very important. We need to support a transition to net zero that  is also resilient, with enough capital to achieve it. The COVID-19 pandemic has seen a return  of the state and is a moment to re-think the values and frameworks for the future we want.  This is fundamentally about structural reform and good governance for a green and resilient  recovery.

 

Speakers

Moderator

Mr. Olaf Bruns
Senior Journalist

Keynote speaker

H.E. Nelson de Souza
Minister for Planning, Portugal

Panelists

Ms. Véronique Lehideux 
Head of service, General Directorate for Risk Prevention, France

Mr. Henk Ovink
Special Envoy for International Water Affairs, The Netherlands

Mr. Dragoş Pîslaru
Member of the European Parliament, Romania

Ms. Alanna Simpson
Lead Disaster Risk Management Specialist, Resilience & Land, World Bank 

Replay at:

Documents

 

Session information

Format

Session type: Plenary session

Who can attend: Registered participants

Interpretation

English, Portuguese, Russian

Accessibility

 International sign language

 Closed captions