Sri Lanka: World Bank calls for national disaster risk funding strategy
Source: Asia Insurance Review | Aug 2017
Sri Lanka Nat CAT Risk Management
Sri Lanka should develop a national disaster risk financing strategy and explore catastrophe risk insurance options for public assets given losses caused by recent natural disasters whose frequency is increasing, said the World Bank in its latest development update.
To improve Sri Lanka’s physical resilience to disasters, the World Bank is supporting the government’s Climate Resilience Improvement Project. It recommends that the government identify current climate risk, and implement immediate risk mitigation interventions, identify future drivers of risk and create basin-level long-term risk mitigation investment plans, followed by physical investments.
In the short term, it recommends Sri Lanka streamline the loss data collection and reporting system, develop a national disaster risk financing strategy, review the sustainability of the current government catastrophe insurance programme and enhance data sharing for insurance market development.
In the medium to long term, the World Bank recommends Sri Lanka develop financial tools to support decision making, including a disaster risk model for the Ministry of Finance and establish a National Disaster Reserve Fund as a fast-disbursement mechanism for post-disaster operations. A