Executive Summary
A year of learning and change
Fiscal year 2017 (FY17) was a milestone year for the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR). The year was marked by reflection and learning, a process that led to the development of a new Strategy for the period of 2018-2021. This new Strategy reflects an evolution of the Facility from a mechanism that financed short-lived pilots to one that enables large operations that integrate climate and disaster risk into development programs. Indeed, last year alone, GFDRR supported resilience investments of close to $5 billion. In drafting the new Strategy, GFDRR outlined targets for the next three years that will focus on eight areas of engagement with clear operating principles.
Over the past few years, GFDRR’s program gradually shifted to activities that either lead to larger development programs, or support policy changes that strengthen institutions for managing risk at the national and sub-national levels.
A few notable examples from FY17 include Indonesia’s national urban upgradation project, which enabled $1.3 billion in investments from the government, and where GFDRR provided support to train all project operators and over 4,000 facilitators who will ensure the disaster risk management (DRM) is mainstreamed into the project design and implementation. In Europe and Central Asia, with technical assistance from GFDRR, a $160 million project approved by the European Union is helping Turkey’s Ministry of National Education to build earthquake-resistant schools, ensuring safe access to education for 40,000 Syrian children.
In Mali, GFDRR helped leverage over $30 million in grants and concessional financing from the Green Climate Fund and the World Bank to improve the country’s hydromet infrastructure, systems, and services.
GFDRR also increased its engagement in the climate agenda by providing support for integrating the climate change dimension into new and ongoing World Bank projects. In FY17 alone, GFDRR’s assistance helped integrate climate-resilience measures into more than $1 billion in investments in over 20 countries, including in Tajikistan, Burundi, India, and Mongolia. In India, for instance, assistance from GFDRR is integrating climate-resilience measures into a $200 million project targeting flood risk management in the eastern part of the country, in Assam.
The new Strategy sets pre-established targets for its eight areas of engagement that reflect the Facility’s ambition over the next three years. These include: (i) making disaster risk information openly accessible at the district level in all its countries of engagement;
(ii) making 200,000 classrooms safer from disasters, benefitting up to 7 million students;
(iii) leveraging at least $1.5 billion in urban areas from public and private resources;
(iv) providing access to climate early warning services to 100 million people in low-income countries and small island states; (v) training 500 government officials in financial protection and enabling direct and indirect insurance programs that will eventually cover more than 100 million people; (vi) reaching at least 15 million people through community engagements and social protection; (vii) enabling at least $3 billion in climate-resilience investments from development partners; and (viii) training at least 1,000 government officials on post-disaster assessment and recovery planning.
An important area of growth for GFDRR over the last year has been the way that it monitors its own progress. These efforts show that GFDRR is already well on its way to achieving the targets outlined above. In FY17, GFDRR’s program helped generate 1,500 open risk datasets and hazard layers. Technical assistance supporting safer school activities has already made 78,300 classrooms safer, benefiting close to 2 million students. Engagements in hydromet and early warning systems are already reaching 40 million people, while GFDRR’s dedicated support to community resilience engagement benefitted 4 million people.
GFDRR’s analytical work has focused on methodologies to measure and track progress on resilience building at country-level, to assess the impact of DRM investments, and to prioritize actions to build resilience at the country level. To achieve this, GFDRR supported the development of a national-level indicator to measure socioeconomic resilience to river and coastal floods, storms, earthquakes, and tsunamis in 117 countries. The results of this work were published in "Unbreakable: Building the Resilience of the Poor in the Face of Natural Disasters."
Over the last few years, GFDRR has seen a gradual increase in requests from cities and local governments to support large-scale investments. FY17 laid the foundation to scale up engagements in rapidly urbanizing areas with the successful launch of the City Resilience Program. This program, implemented jointly with the World Bank and other partners, has already started in 10 cities, and is expected to grow to 30 cities in the next three years.
Going forward, GFDRR will continue to strengthen action on the ground through the development of knowledge, tools, and methodologies for jointly addressing climate and disaster risk in development programs. Activities will increase in resilient infrastructure, with engagements in the transport, energy, and water sectors. GFDRR’s action on financial protection and insurance should expand greatly. A strong push is also expected to promote disability and inclusion into the design of GFDRR’s activities.
GFDRR’s FY17 achievements, while significant, were only possible thanks to support from its donors and partners. We take this opportunity to express sincere gratitude to all those who have contributed to the Facility’s growing program. GFDRR will continue to strengthen its partnerships to reach new heights in the years to come.