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This paper focuses on how developing countries can change the way they prepare for disasters so they are better equipped to sustain economic growth. It discusses the importance of considering the goals of key decision makers and the need to understand the perceptions, systematics biases, and heuristics used by the relevant interested parties (the affected public, private and public sector organizations, and nongovernmental organizations) in choosing between alternatives. The paper highlights the importance of undertaking benefit-cost analysis to evaluate disaster risk reduction measures, recognizing that decision makers might not make meaningful use of this policy tool given their behavioral biases and simplified heuristics. To address these issues, the authors propose green growth strategies that involve multi-year contracts coupled with short-term incentives that have a chance of being implemented. The strategies focus on the role of multi-year micro-insurance, long-term loans, and multi-year catastrophe bonds that reflect the institutional arrangements in the developing country. The paper illustrates this proposal in the case of farmers' agricultural practices and investment decisions that reduce losses to property from catastrophic disasters such as drought.

Banks & Banking Reform --- Benefit-cost analysis --- Climate Change Economics --- Debt Markets --- Disaster reduction --- Economic growth --- Energy --- Environment --- Green growth policies --- Hazard Risk Management --- Insurance & Risk Mitigation --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Risk reduction

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"This Framework Programme reflects the Hyogo Framework for Action and strives to assist member countries implement its five Priorities for Action for the agricultural sectors. It intends to respond to recent recommendations made on disaster risk reduction by the Committee on Agriculture, the Programme and Finance Committee, the Committee on World Food Security and the Committee on Fisheries. At the core of the Disaster Risk Reduction for Food and Nutrition Security Framework Programme are four integrated thematic pillars: (i) enable the environment, (ii) watch to safeguard, (iii) prepare to respond, and (iv) build resilience. The Framework Programme promotes the integrated implementation of the four pillars for a more holistic approach, striving to maximize the synergies and complementarities between the pillars and hence the critical links between good governance, early warning, preparedness, mitigation and prevention."--Publisher's description.

Food security. --- Emergency management --- Economic development --- Planning. --- Food deserts --- Food insecurity --- Insecurity, Food --- Security, Food --- Human security --- Food supply --- Food security --- Planning --- E-books --- Hazard mitigation. --- Disaster mitigation --- Disaster risk mitigation --- Disaster risk reduction --- Disasters --- Hazards mitigation --- Mitigation, Hazard --- Natural hazard mitigation --- Natural hazards mitigation --- Reduction of risks of disasters --- Risk mitigation, Disaster --- Risk reduction, Disaster --- Risk mitigation --- Consequence management (Emergency management) --- Disaster planning --- Disaster preparedness --- Disaster prevention --- Disaster relief --- Emergencies --- Emergency planning --- Emergency preparedness --- Management --- Public safety --- First responders --- Preparedness --- Prevention --- Emergency management.

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Climate variability poses a severe threat to subsistence farmers in southern Africa. Two different approaches have emerged in recent years to address these threats: the use of seasonal precipitation forecasts for risk reduction (for example, choosing seed varieties that can perform well for expected rainfall conditions), and the use of innovative financial instruments for risk sharing (for example, index-based weather insurance bundled to microcredit for agricultural inputs). So far these two approaches have remained entirely separated. This paper explores the integration of seasonal forecasts into an ongoing pilot insurance scheme for smallholder farmers in Malawi. The authors propose a model that adjusts the amount of high-yield agricultural inputs given to farmers to favorable or unfavorable rainfall conditions expected for the season. Simulation results - combining climatic, agricultural, and financial models - indicate that this approach substantially increases production in La Nina years (when droughts are very unlikely for the study area), and reduces losses in El Nino years (when insufficient rainfall often damages crops). Cumulative gross revenues are more than twice as large for the proposed scheme, given modeling assumptions. The resulting accumulation of wealth can reduce long-term vulnerability to drought for participating farmers. Conclusions highlight the potential of this approach for adaptation to climate variability and change in southern Africa.

Agriculture --- Bank --- Banks and Banking Reform --- Climate change --- Crops and Crop Management Systems --- Damages --- Debt Markets --- Drought --- Droughts --- Emerging Markets --- Farmers --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Financial Intermediation --- Hazard Risk Management --- Insurance --- Insurance and Risk Mitigation --- Labor Policies --- Poverty Reduction --- Private Sector Development --- Risk --- Risk reduction --- Rural Development --- Rural Poverty Reduction --- Social Protections and Labor --- Technology --- Urban Development

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This paper aims to estimate the global aggregate of disaster impacts during 1960 to 2007 using Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) methodology. The authors selected 184 major disasters in terms of the size of economic damages, based on the data available from the International Emergency Disasters and MunichRe (NatCat) databases for natural catastrophes. They estimate the losses and total impacts including the higher-order effects of these disasters using social accounting matrices constructed for this study. Although the aggregate damages based on the data amount to USD 742 billion, the aggregate losses and total impacts are estimated at USD 360 billion and USD 678 billion, respectively. The results show a growing trend of economic impacts over time in absolute value. However, once the data and estimates are normalized using global gross domestic product, the historical trend of total impacts becomes statistically insignificant. The visual observation confirms the inverted 'U' curve distribution between total impact and income level, while statistical analyses indicate negative linear relationships between them for climatological, geophysical, and especially hydrological events.

Catastrophic consequences --- Conflict and Development --- Disaster --- Disaster community --- Disaster Management --- Disaster reduction --- Disaster risk --- Disaster risk reduction --- Disasters --- Documents --- Drought --- Droughts --- Earthquake --- Earthquakes --- Economic Theory and Research --- Environment --- Floods --- Hazard Risk Management --- Hurricane --- Macroeconomics and Economic Growth --- Natural catastrophes --- Natural disaster --- Natural Disasters --- Natural hazards --- Reconstruction --- Urban Development --- Volcano

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Catastrophe risk models allow insurers, reinsurers and governments to assess the risk of loss from catastrophic events, such as hurricanes. These models rely on computer technology and the latest earth and meteorological science information to generate thousands if not millions of simulated events. Recently observed hurricane activity, particularly in the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons, in conjunction with recently published scientific literature has led risk modelers to revisit their hurricane models and develop climate conditioned hurricane models. This paper discusses these climate conditioned hurricane models and compares their risk estimates to those of base normal hurricane models. This comparison shows that the recent 50 year period of climate change has potentially increased North Atlantic hurricane frequency by 30 percent. However, such an increase in hurricane frequency would result in an increase in risk to human property that is equivalent to less than 10 years' worth of US coastal property growth. Increases in potential extreme losses require the reinsurance industry to secure additional risk capital for these peak risks, resulting in the short term in lower risk capacity for developing countries. However, reinsurers and investors in catastrophe securities may still have a long-term interest in providing catastrophe coverage in middle and low-income countries as this allows reinsurers and investors to better diversify their catastrophe risk portfolios.

Catastrophic events --- Climate change --- Conflict and Development --- Debt Markets --- Development network --- Disaster --- Disaster Management --- Disaster reduction --- Disaster risk --- Disaster risk reduction --- Earthquake --- Earthquakes --- Environment --- Finance and Financial Sector Development --- Hazard Risk Management --- Hurricane --- Hurricanes --- Insurance and Risk Mitigation --- Insurance Law --- Insurers --- Law and Justice --- Natural Disasters --- Natural hazards --- Reconstruction --- Reinsurers --- Risk assessment --- Storm --- Storms --- Terrorists --- Urban Development