RESILIENCE TO CLIMATE CHANGEAN OVERVIEW OF SUPPORT PROVIDED BY GFDRR
Prepared for the First Meeting of the
Resilience to Climate Change Advisory Group
October 26, 2015 | Berlin, Germany

2015 Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery
1818 H Street, N.W., Washington, D.C., 20433, U.S.A.
Internet: www.gfdrr.org
This report is available on the GFDRR website at www.gfdrr.org/RCCreport

Acknowledgments
Preparation of this report was led by the following members of the GFDRR team: Sofia Bettencourt,
Rebecca Soares, Nicolas Desramaut, Miranda Gaanderse, Tafadzwa Irvine Dube, Shivshankar Srikanth,Nicholas Jones, and Robert Reid. The report was also made possible by the critical contributions of Daniel
Kull, Axel E. N. Baeumler, Nathan Engle, and Mook Bangalore. The report was edited by Shaela Rahman,
Jon Mikel Walton and Sonia Elizabeth Luthra. The document was designed by Rebecca Soares. All images
are from Sofia Bettencourt and GFDRR Flickr.

Rights and Permissions
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The text in this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part and in any form for educational or
nonprofit uses, without special permission, provided acknowledgement of the source is made. The GFDRRSecretariat would appreciate receiving a copy of any publication using this report as a source. Copies may
be sent to the GFDRR Secretariat at the above address.
No use of this publication may be made for resale or other commercial purpose without prior writtenconsent of the GFDRR Secretariat. All images remain the sole property of the source and may not be used
for any purpose without written permission from the source.

Notes:
Fiscal year 2015 (FY) runs from July 1, 2014 to June 30, 2015.
All dollar amounts are in US dollars ($) unless otherwise indicated.

Box 1: About GFDRRThe Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) is a global partnership, managed by the WorldBank and funded by 22 donor partners, that supports the implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk
Reduction 2015-30 by enabling developing countries to better understand and reduce their vulnerabilities to natural
hazards and adapt to climate change. Working with over 400 local, national, regional, and international partners,
GFDRR provides grant financing for technical assistance, analytical work, training and knowledge sharing to help
mainstream disaster and climate risk management into country-level strategies and policies.
GFDRR finances activities through a Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MDTF) and two Special Programs: the Africa Caribbean
Pacific–European Union Natural Disaster Risk Reduction Program (ACP-EU Program) and the Japan-World Bank
Program for Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Management in Developing Countries (Japan-World Bank Program)Multi-Donor Trust FundACP – EU Program

Japan-World Bank Program

GFDRR’s monitors its activities through five Pillars of Action, including cross-cutting themes such as resilience toclimate change and gender.
Risk Identification
Risk Reduction
Preparedness
Financial Protection
Resilient Recovery
Improving access
Improving
Strengthening early
Developing financial
Improving theto disaster andplanning, building warning, forecasting,protection
quality andclimate risk
practices,
contingency
strategies andtimeliness of
information andpolicies, andplanning, andinsurance markets
recovery andcapacity to create,
investments toemergency
reconstruction
manage, and use
reduce disaster
preparedness forthis informationand climate risk
disaster response
Through its Thematic Programs, GFDRR provides tailored technical support to implementing partners. These
programs also assure the quality of GFDRR grants and lead capacity development and knowledge activities. GFDRR’s
thematic programs primarily underpin country programs and cut across the five pillars of action.
Disaster Risk Financing andInsurance
Inclusive Community
Resilience
Hydromet
Innovation Lab
Resilient Cities

Safer Schools
Resilient Recovery

Supports activities that aim at strengthening the financial resilience ofgovernments, businesses, and households.
Supports activities that aim at promoting community driven development,
gender equality, and women’s empowerment, as well as increasing civilsociety engagement in policy dialogues.
Supports activities that aim at modernizing weather, climate, andhydrological information systems, working in close collaboration with theWorld Meteorological Organization (WMO)
Supports the use of science, technology, open data, and innovation toempower decision-makers to increase resilience.
Supports cities to prepare and adapt to changing conditions, and towithstand and recover rapidly from disruptions related to climate change,
disasters caused by natural hazards and other systemic shocks.
Supports activities aimed at integrating risk into existing education sector
investments by leveraging long-established relationships with ministries offinance, public works, and education.
Supports post-disaster assessments and recovery frameworks to mainstream
disaster risk management and recovery readiness into development policy.

Resilience to Climate Change is a Cross-Cutting Theme of GFDRR, cutting across nearly half of its portfolio.

1Overview
Building resilience to climate change1 is a key component of GFDRR’s commitment to integrate disasterrisk management into development strategies. With Munich Re estimating that 87 percent of thereported disasters and 74 percent of the losses in 1980-2012 were caused by weather extremes, the links
between disaster risk management and climate change adaptation are increasingly apparent. The impactsof climate-related disasters are felt most acutely by the poorest and most marginalized populations, whocommonly live in the highest-risk areas and have the least ability to recover. Building resilience to climatechange is therefore critical to help end extreme poverty and build shared prosperity.
GFDRR engages with regions and countries where disaster risk management principles are important
for adaptation to climate change and management of disasters’ residual risks. This provides
opportunities to manage disaster risks through a climate resilient perspective and in turn to use provenmethods of disaster risk management to manage the impact of climate change. Since its inception, GFDRR
has supported activities that contribute to climate change
adaptation. Between 30-45 percent of the grants awarded
Resilience to climate change
from fiscal years (FY) 2007 to 2014 contributed tohas long been an important
adaptation to climate change, in addition to morepart of GFDRR’s work
immediate disaster risk management.

Box 2: Highlights of Past GFDRR Support to Resilience to Climate Change – the Building Resilience Report
In late 2013, GFDRR and the Climate Finance and Policy Team issued the“Building Resilience” Report, summarizing the World Bank Group’s
experience in climate and disaster resilient development. It concluded
that:oBuilding climate and disaster resilience is essential to ending poverty
and shared prosperity.

o

Climate and disaster resilient development is effective over the
long-term, but can require substantial start-up support – bothtechnical as well as financial.

oThere is an increasing body of knowledge on how to build resilience
to weather-related disasters, but better integration between
climate resilience approaches and disaster risk management isrequired to optimize these synergies.

World Bank and GFDRR (2013): Building Resilience – Integrating Climate andDisaster Risks into Development. The World Bank Group Experience1

GFDRR uses the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) definition of resilience to climatechange, which is “the ability of a system and its component parts to anticipate, absorb, accommodate or recoverfrom the effects of a hazardous (climate-related) event in a timely and efficient manner….”.

2

Since November 2014, GFDRR’s support for resilience to climate change has been further spearheaded by
a CHF 14.45 million contribution from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation Global Programfor Climate Change (SDC-GPCC), channeled through the GFDRR’s Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MDTF). Specificachievements under this financing are highlighted n Section II.
Resilience to climate change cuts across all of GFDRR’s results pillars and geographical regions, and is inturn supported by all of its specialized thematic programs (see Section I). As such, it is considered amajor cross-cutting theme of GFDRR’s program. In 2015, GFDRR introduced an improved methodology toaccount for grants which specifically contributed to resilience to climate change2. Using this conservative
new methodology, 49 percent of the GFDRR grants that were active in FY15 contained components
relevant to resilience to climate change. These included GFDRR-supported activities in countries exposedto cyclones, storms, floods, landslides, periods of intense rainfall, sea level rise and glacial melt, as well asactivities which make an explicit attempt to anticipate future climate change scenarios, and adapt to theirinherent uncertainties.
In addition to supporting direct investment in climate change resilience, GFDRR grants also leveragelarger World Bank investments, helping bring resilience funding to scale. By providing implementation
support and technical assistance, GFDRR grants inform and leverage additional World Bank funding forclimate resilience. In FY15, GFDRR grants and analytical work helped leverage $1.2 billion in World Bank
adaptation financing, representing nearly half of the World Bank’s total portfolio for climate change
adaptation.
The importance of resilience to climate change in GFDRR operations is expected to grow further under
three emerging new initiatives:•

SISRI - The Small Island States Resilience Initiative, launched by the World Bank Group in September
2014, supports Small Island States in reducing climate and disaster risks, through scaled-up
investments and dedicated global knowledge adjusted to country needs.

•

CREWS – The Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems Initiative, launched by the Government ofFrance, aims to strengthen early warning systems in vulnerable countries, in particular in Least
Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States.

•

InsuResilience – or the G7 Climate Risk Initiative, spearheaded by the Government of Germany,
which aims to support innovative insurance solutions to manage weather and climate risks.

Section I of this summary review examines the scope of Resilience to Climate Change across the active
FY15 GFDRR portfolio. Section II reports on recent achievements. Section III reports on emerging new
initiatives supporting climate resilience, Section IV summarizes the remaining challenges, and Section V
proposes a way forward and terms of reference for the Advisory Group on Climate Resilience.

2

Starting from FY15, GFDRR classified all of its active grants on whether or not they included components with a
specific intent to support climate change adaptation. Only grants that reflected this specific intent were counted as
supporting resilience to climate change. This is consistent with the World Bank methodology for tracking climatechange co-benefits in economic and sector work, and non-lending technical assistance activities. It is a conservative
methodology, since it only captures grants that explicitly address resilience to climate change (and not those which
addresses resilience to hydro-meteorological disasters and therefore contribute to adaptation indirectly).

3

I. Resilience to Climate Change across the GFDRR FY15 Active Portfolio
Resilience to Climate Change is a cross-cutting theme
constituting a large portion of the GFDRR portfolio. This isreflected in the rising number of recently approved grantsthat included support for climate change resilience. In FY15,
nearly half of GFDRR grants under implementation – 137 grants
totaling $106 million - contained components relevant toresilience to climate change, in countries exposed to cyclones,
storms, floods, landslides, and periods of intense rainfall, sealevel rise and glacial melt.
Funding for resilience to climate change is supported by all
core GFDRR funds, with the highest proportion amongst thenewest funds (see Figure 2). This is to be expected since themulti-donor trust fund (MDTF) includes an older portfolio ofgrants, when GFDRR’s and donors’ emphasis on climate
resilience was not as pronounced. Nevertheless, 45 percent of
the MDTF grants included components which contributed toclimate resilience.

49% of GFDRR Grants under
implementation support resilience
to climate change

Figure 1. Proportion of GFDRR Active FY15
Grants Supporting Climate Resilience

Figure 2. Proportion of Active GFDRR Grants Supporting Climate Resilience by Source of Funds

4

Figure 3. Active GFDRR Portfolio Supporting Climate Resilience by Region

Note: Size of circles indicate relative portfolio amounts

GFDRR activities related to climate resilience are currently being implemented in more than 52
countries. Of all regions, the East Asia and Pacific portfolio shows the largest relative focus on resilience
to climate change, followed closely by that of Latin America and Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa. A
significant portion of GFDRR grants in both the Latin America and Caribbean and the East Asia and Pacificregions address the unique vulnerabilities of Small Island States, which represent more than 40 percentof the two regions’ climate resilience portfolio. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the relative importance of climate
resilience reflects the prevalence of hydro-meteorological hazards (which are climate-sensitive) and theclose links between disaster risk management and adaptation.
In addition to supporting direct investment in climate change resilience, GFDRR grants also leveragelarger World Bank investments, helping bring resilience
funding to scale. By providing implementation support
In FY15, GFDRR grants andand technical assistance, GFDRR grants inform andanalytical work helped
leverage additional World Bank funding for climate
resilience. In FY15, GFDRR grants and analytical work
leverage $1.2 billion inhelped leverage $1.2 billion in World Bank adaptation
World Bank adaptation
financing, representing nearly half of the World Bank’s
financing
total portfolio for climate change adaptation. This does
not take into account additional resources leveraged fromother donor and government funds.
5

Amongst its results’ pillars, GFDRR support to resilience to climate change contributes most significantly
to risk identification and risk reduction. However, it comprises a significant proportion of the GFDRR
portfolio across all pillars.

Figure 4. Active GFDRR Portfolio Supporting Climate Resilience by Results Pillars

GFDRR plays a key role in helping countries understand their climate and disaster risks, and develop
risk-informed policies and investments. This is an area for which countries are normally reluctant to use
scarce development assistance resources. Through its targeted support to risk identification, GFDRR
grants are able to generate interest for, and subsequently leverage additional World Bank investments
for risk reduction and preparedness, helping countries take into account also slow-onset events and longterm climate change.

6

GFDRR Thematic Programs Contribution to Resilience to Climate Change
GFDRR’s thematic programs provide specialized technical teams’ support to World Bank operations andexternal clients and partners. These specialized teams also help GFDRR contribute to climate resilience, inways that are illustrated below.

78II. IN FOCUS: Recent Activities Supporting Resilience to Climate Change
GFDRR grants supporting resilience to climate change fall into the following categories:a) Technical and Implementation Assistance Grants: Activities that apply technical knowledge,
analysis or operational tools to address climate resilient challenges within an operational context.
b) Just-in-time Capacity Building and Advice: These are small grants (less than US$50,000) for rapidly
deployed specialized advice or training requested by a client country, to help them address specificclimate resilience or weather-related disaster risk management issues.
c) Analytical Products: Funding high priority analytical work (including Best Practice Notes),emphasizing climate resilience.
Below is a summary of recent grants in each of these categories, supported by the Swiss Agency for
Development and Cooperation Global Program for Climate Change (SDC-GPCC) (see Box 3). This
dedicated support has enabled GFDRR to increase its engagement in climate resilience, and is graduallypromoting better synergies between disaster risk management and climate adaptation in World Bank
operations.

Targeted Technical Assistance
Early 2015 marked the conception phase for a technical assistance project aimed at strengthening thecapacity of national hydrological services in Sub-Saharan Africa. Now underway, this project aims to
improve the capacity of five countries – Cameroon, Madagascar, Senegal, Tanzania, and Zambia - toproduce and communicate hydrological information and help users access and use data more effectively.
This includes also improving the governments’ ability to inform, plan, and make cost-effective investments
in climate resilient development. Gaining added urgency as Sub-Saharan Africa braces for the effects of astrong El Niño, this project will achieve its goals through developing national hydrological services
modernization plans and creating national hydrology data users’ groups.
Grants in the pipeline include: (1) strengthening trans-boundary climate information across Central Asian
countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgz Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan); (2) incorporating climate adaptationand disaster risk management into spatial and sector planning in high risk areas of Madagascar; and (3)assistance to landslide and flood management in Bhutan and Nepal.

9

Box 3: The SDC Contribution to Resilience to Climate Change at GFDRRIn November 2014, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation Global Program for Climate Change (SDCGPCC) contributed CHF 14,450,000 ($14.9 million equivalent) to the GFDRR Multi-Donor Trust Fund for specificsupport to resilience to climate change, for a period of four years (FY15-18). Eligible activities have to specificallysupport building resilience to weather-related disasters and associated climate change risks, in addition to meeting
MDTF eligibility criteria. For technical assistance and just-in-time capacity building and advice, activities should also
contribute to strengthened institutions and capacity building of stakeholders.
As of 30 September 2015, the SDC contribution to Resilience to Climate Change comprised a portfolio of 13 grants,of which 2 were completed, 7 were ongoing, and 4 were in the pipeline (see Table below). Since funding was
activated in December 2014, the reporting below compares achievements during the first 9 months of calendar year
2015 with the planned activities for the first year of implementation. The slower than expected uptake of just-intime grants was due to lack of familiarity with this new instrument, but demand has recently increased and is
expected to accelerate in future years. Results against the GFDRR framework will be reported once the portfolio is
more mature.

SDC Contribution to Resilience to Climate Change Cross-Cutting Theme
Summary of Key Achievements in 2015
Year 1
Target
1. Targeted Technical Assistance
2. Just-in-Time Capacity Building
3. Analytical Products
Total Grants
Commitments to date (US$)
1
BD- based on country demand

4
20
1
25

Achieved to Date
(January to September 2015)
Completed
Ongoing
Pipeline
-1
3
2
5
BD1
-1
1
2
7
4
58,104
962,550

Total to Date
4
72
131,020,654“Completed” grants are those for which the main approved activity has been completed; “ongoing” grants are thosewhich have been formally approved by the Secretariat; “pipeline” grants are those that are being considered forfunding within the next 3-4 months, but still have to be formally approved by the Secretariat. Commitments underpipeline grants are expected to total $3.2 million, indicating a rapidly expanding demand.
Highlights of these activities are summarized in this section and detailed in Annex A.

Just-in-Time Capacity Building and Advice

This new instrument was introduced by GFDRR in 2015 under the Resilience to Climate Change crosscutting theme, and has been mostly supported by SDC to date. It provides rapid, demand-based expert
advice or training to partner countries, in cases where waiting for the normal processing time of atechnical assistance grant would not be feasible or lead to a loss of opportunity to influence critical policy
reforms.
As of September 30, 2015, GFDRR had supported seven Just-in-Time grants (see Figure 5 and Annex A), of
which two – Advice to Morocco Resilience Fund and Technical Planning to Severe Weather Forecast inCentral Asia – have been completed. The first grant helped the Government of Morocco formulate an
emerging resilience fund, assisting the Moroccan Ministry of Interior in its first open call for proposals
related to climate and disaster resilience activities. The expert mobilized under the grant helped thegovernment to refine criteria for project selection and evaluation of the 90 proposals received, of which
1023 were selected for funding totaling $100 million. This enabled a proof of concept for the resilience fund,providing a basis to scale up under a newly planned World Bank operation. With the support of the Center
for Mediterranean Integration, the Moroccan experience was showcased at the Mediterranean Climate
Conference, organized in June 2015 in Marseille and attended by 500 people. It was also included in thefirst draft of the Positive Solutions Mediterranean Agenda, which will contribute to United Nations Climate
Change Agreement negotiations (CoP21) in Paris in late 2015.
The second Just-in-Time support involved a technical coordination workshop held in Almaty, Kazakhstan
in April 2015, to build capacity amongst Central Asian countries (Kazkhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan,
Uzbekistan) in severe weather forecasting and numerical weather prediction. The workshop, also
supported by the Regional Center of Hydrology of the Executive Committee of the International Fund for
Saving the Aral Sea, agreed on a series of capacity building investments and trainings to leverage global
forecasts available from leading institutions (such as the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather
Forecasts). It is also driving regional numerical weather prediction provided by UzHydromet as the World
Meteorological Organization (WMO) Regional Specialized Meteorological Center.
Figure 5. Just-in-Time Support to Partner Countries approved in January to September 2015

Analytical Products
During 2015, GFDRR approved an analytical product aimed at strengthening the monitoring andevaluation of resilience-building investment operations, funded through the SDC contribution. This work
seeks to produce a more robust set of indicators across World Bank climate resilience operations,11harmonized with those of other key development institutions and global climate funds - such as the
Adaptation Fund, the Pilot Program for Climate Resilience and the Green Climate Fund. A second
analytical product, currently in the pipeline, contributes to the World Bank’s flagship Poverty and Climate
Change report through enhancing two tools aimed at helping national decision-makers choose the bestpolicies to assist the poor, under multiple climate change and development scenarios (see Box 4).
BOX 4 –MONITORING AND E VALUATION FOR RESILIENCE BUILDING OPERATIONS AND IMPACT ASSESSMENT OF
CLIMATE CHANGE ON POVERTYGFDRR’s analytical support to strengthening
the monitoring and evaluation of resiliencebuilding operations, supported by SDC,
responds to increasing demand from donors
and countries to harmonize howdevelopment institutions like the WorldBank measure climate and disaster resilienceat the project-level.
The program held its first workshop from
September 23-24, 2015 in Washington, D.C.,
gathering70
practitioners
fromdevelopment institutions, foundations,multilateral development banks, research
institutions and governments, including the
Asian Development Bank, the Global
Environmental Facility, the Inter-American
Development Bank, the Rockefeller Foundation, the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development
the World Bank, the World Resources Institute and country governments. The two days discussion focused on
improved monitoring and evaluation for resilient-related in investment operations, as well as helped inform dialogue
on harmonization of methodologies across countries and their development partners.
A related analytical product, currently in the pipeline, will be part of the World Bank flagship report on Poverty andClimate Change, and focus on two major outputs: (a) refinement of a socio-economic resilience index; and (b)application of robust decision-making to examine the potential impacts of climate change on poverty.
The first tool combines data on hazard, population, and asset vulnerability with a range of socio-economic variables
to provide a resilience index per country. This allows decision-makers to verify what policy changes might contributethe most to reducing losses to welfare and improve resilience among the most vulnerable. The tool has been applied
as a pilot to river flooding in 90 countries, but needs further refinement at the country level, as well as application
to other climate-relevant hazards, like coastal storm surge. The objective is guide policy discussions and possibly
influence policy choices under innovative financial instruments, such as the newly proposed Debt-for-Resilience andNature swap, and help to monitor the impact of related policies over the long-term.
The second tool uses a framework inspired by robust decision-making to build scenarios examining the potential
impact of climate change on poverty. It explores how climate change would affect development in a set of socioeconomic scenarios, chosen to cover a broad range of possible “futures” to assess the potential magnitude of climatechange impacts. The goal is to better understand how climate change’s impact on poverty depends on socioeconomic development, estimate the potential impacts in “bad” scenarios, and explore possible policy options tominimize this risk. The impacts of climate change on poverty are simulated through a number of sectors – agriculture,12

health, labor productivity, and disasters caused by natural hazards. As such, the policy recommendations provided
are cross-cutting and relevant for a number of government agencies.

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III.

Emerging Initiatives

GFDRR is working with development partners on three emerging initiatives, which support resilience toclimate change:(1) SISRI - The Small Island States Resilience Initiative(2) CREWS - Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems Initiative(3) InsuResilience – Group of 7 Climate Risk Initiative

The Small Island States Resilience Initiative (SISRI)

•

•

•

The Small Island States Resilience Initiative(SISRI) was launched by the World Bank, withsupport from GFDRR, at the UN Small Island
Developing States Conference in Samoa in
September 2014, to support Small Island States(SIDS) in reducing climate and disaster risks totheir people, economies and ecosystems. SISRI
acts as an umbrella programmatic framework,
and is customized to the needs of each country.

pipeline envisages assistance to 25 countries
in 2016-18, with a baseline financing of
US$570 million, which could leverage up to
US$1.3 billion under scaled-up financing.
Phase I of SISRI has been submitted to theGreen Climate Fund.

SISRI supports scaled-up investments, technicalassistance and policy reforms, including
innovative new instruments such as a debt forresilience and nature swap. It relies on an
already considerable program of World Bank
assistance to resilience in SIDS, averaging
US$180 million a year.
To meet their most urgent needs for adaptation
and risk reduction, SIDS will need increased
levels of financing. The current

14•

SISRI is supported by a global teamspecialized on the needs of SIDS, currently
comprising 45 staff from multiple technicaldisciplines and regions•

To achieve a scaled-up scenario, GFDRR and
the World Bank are developing a coreprogram of technical support in cooperation
with partners. This assistance will focus on
dedicated operational assistance to SIDS,
establishing a global community of practicespecialized on their needs, and enhancing
measurement of resilience results.

CREWS - Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems Initiative
While many times, losses from hydro-meteorological disasters could have been avoided if operational
early warning systems were in place, about two-thirds of the Least Developed Countries and Small Island
States lack access to operational systems that could warn populations of potentially catastrophic
events. To address this challenge, the Government of France, in partnership with the World
Meteorological Organization, UNISDR, GFDRR, and the World Bank is working to operationalize the
Climate Risk and Early Warning Systems (CREWS) initiative.
The long-term goal of CREWS is to support early warning systems in vulnerable countries to try to fully
cover the global population exposed to extreme climate events by 2020. Over the medium-term, CREWS
aims to strengthen multi-hazard early warning systems to generate and communicate more effective early
warnings and risk information to protect lives, livelihoods and assets in Least Developed Countries andSmall Island Developing States.
To do that, CREWS will increase the linkages between global and regional WMO centers, as well as
improve the technical and operation support to national meteorological and hydrological services andearly-warning systems. It will also strengthen the links between early warning and emergency
management, and the use of risk information in risk reduction.
Figure 6 - Early Warning Capacity of National Hydro-Meteorological Services in Selected Least
Developed Countries and Small Island States(Source: GFDRR based on WMO data)15

InsuResilience - G7 Climate Risk initiative
In the context of the G7 German presidency, GFDRR has supported discussions around a proposed G7
Climate Risk initiative, InsuResilience, aiming to enhance climate risk insurance access in Least-Developed
and low income countries. This initiative includes potential support to strengthen the Caribbean
Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF)3, the Pacific Catastrophe Risk Assessment and Financing
Initiative (PCRAFI)4 and other innovative financing protection mechanisms. This set of rapid actions is
expected to be announced before the CoP21 meeting in Paris.

How do these different initiatives come together?
While SISRI is a programmatic framework specializing on SIDS, similar to GFDRR’s country programs,
CREWS and InsuResilience focus on thematic areas, requiring integration at the regional and global levels
to produce economies of scale.
GFDRR’s role is to identify country-specific needs, as well as target funding and specialized assistance tomeet these needs in a programmatic fashion. This helps countries combine sources of funding to build
resilience over the long-term.
For example, a Small Island State like Vanuatu could benefit from baseline financing through GFDRR’s
Multi-Donor Trust Fund or the ACP-EU Program, as well as scaled-up financing through SISRI for priority
risk reduction support. Depending on needs, a country could also benefit from strengthened early warning
systems through CREWS, and join a pooled insurance scheme through InsuResilience. The national
program would remain Vanuatu’s own, with the advantage of following harmonized procedures acrossmultiple sources of funding. The recently approved Pacific Resilience Program is an example of such a
program, benefiting from six different financing and technical assistance sources.

34

http://www.ccrif.org/
http://pcrafi.sopac.org/

16

IV. Remaining Challenges
Looking ahead, there are a number of remaining challenges that need to be addressed for resilience toclimate change to grow within the GFDRR portfolio:
1. Resilient livelihoods. While disaster risk management has traditionally focused on physical assets,climate change is also affecting livelihoods and resources – such as the crops, water supply, and fishinggrounds on which vulnerable households often depend. To address this challenge, GFDRR will needto increasingly reach out to Global Practices assisting partner countries in promoting climate-smart
agriculture, water management, and natural resources management.
2. Addressing future uncertainties. Climate change brings large uncertainties and alterations to thehistorical patterns of natural hazards which have traditionally been used in probabilistic risk
assessment. Thus, there is a need to use more dynamic risk assessments, and to adopt more robust
methods of decision making that take future uncertainty into account – methodologies that are
currently being promoted by GFDRR’s Innovation Lab and the Climate Change Group Chief
Economist’s team.
3. Flexible financing. Risk reduction remains the largest financing gap in promoting resilience to climatechange. GFDRR needs to continue to have access to flexible financing to channel funding for climate
resilience based on opportunities to make an impact, as well as country demand. This highlights theimportance of non-earmarked funding under the Multi-Donor Trust Fund.
4. Institutions. GFDRR’s primary counterparts at the national level are often Disaster Management
Agencies, whose mandate can be ill-suited to promote resilience to climate change. Planning
agencies, with their broader inter-sectoral mandate, are often better placed to promote resilience
across development planning, and GFDRR assistance is increasingly being extended to them. This
aspect remains a challenge, however, in countries where mandates remain rigidly sectoral.
5. Visibility and results. The process of building resilience to climate change, involving changes in risk
behavior, is often lengthy, requiring intensive staff oversight with long-term results that are not easy
to predict or measure. These characteristics make it especially challenging for development partners
to support, as they often need shorter-term results to satisfy their domestic constituencies. GFDRR isaddressing this challenge by promoting further development of resilience indicators (see Box 4) as
well as broader use of results-based financing instruments in adaptation (such as its recent support
to the Morocco Integrated Disaster Risk Management and Resilience Program).

17

V.

Terms of Reference for the Advisory Group on Climate
Resilience

Recognizing the large and increasing importance of resilience to climate change across the GFDRR
portfolio, GFDRR held its first meeting of the Advisory Group on Climate Resilience, in Berlin, on October
26, 2015. Meeting participants broadly agreed to the establishment of the Advisory Group and its Termsof Reference (below), while noting that the Advisory Group should also provide strategic guidance to its
members on how to improve and render more efficient the international processes and financing foradaptation.

Terms of Reference for the Advisory Group on Climate Resilience
1. The Advisory Group (AG) consists of interested Consultative Group (CG) members, complemented
by climate adaptation specialists and external experts brought by CG member organizations basedon need;2. It should remain a relatively small and informal group (<20 members), allowing for flexibility in its
membership and operation;

3. A core team from within the AG (max. 3-5 persons), including an identified person/team at GFDRR
headquarters in Washington (“engine”), will be charged with the preparation and management of
the Advisory Group meetings (physical and virtual), to ensure regular exchange with and between
group members and, more generally, to bring the Resilience to Climate Change forward.

4. The AG will meet at least once a year at the margins of the Fall CG, as well as virtually if needed.
5. The Advisory Group will:(a) Review the GFDRR draft Annual Work Plan and Annual Report, and accompanying progress
reports on the Resilience to Climate Change cross-cutting theme, with a view of advising the CG
and Secretariat on ways to improve linkages between disaster risk management and climatechange adaptation, and gradually strengthen GFDRR’s resilience to climate change focus;(b) Exchange information on the progress of international policy discussions which may influence
GFDRR’s portfolio, and to which GFDRR may contribute (such as financing for adaptation,
harmonization of disaster risk management and loss and damage agendas, and the Green
Climate Fund);(c) Share operational experiences that may be relevant to the GFDRR portfolio supporting
resilience to climate change, or where GFDRR’s experience may be relevant to that of its
partners;(d) Monitor the geographical focus, result pillars and leveraging impact of the GFDRR portfolio as
it applies to resilience to climate change, and propose strategic adjustments if needed;(e) Help GFDRR oversee and/or promote thematic programs or emerging initiatives;(f) Ensure that GFDRR’s support to resilience to climate change remains country driven;(g) Perform other tasks, as needed.

6. The Advisory Group will not have a governance role. This responsibility would remain with the CG.
18

Annex A – SDC Support to Resilience to Climate Change Cross-Cutting Theme
Project Portfolio and Summary of Commitments to date (as of September 30, 2015)

List of Grants Completed
Country/region

Title

Summary

Implementing
Partners/Mainbeneficiaries

Total
amount(US$)

Outcome 2 – Just in time capacity building and Advice

Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz
Republic, Tajikistan,
Uzbekistan – Europe
and Central Asia

Morocco – Middle
East and North Africa

Technical planningfor Improving Severe
Weather Forecastingin Accordance with
the Severe Weather
Forecasting
Demonstration
Project approach forCentral Asia

Advisory Services andCapacity Building for
Morocco’s Emerging“Resilience Fund”

This supported a technical coordination workshop
held in Almaty, Kazakhstan to build capacity inCentral Asia in severe weather forecasting andnumerical weather prediction.
It also helped ensure that the results of the Severe
Weather Forecasting Demonstration Project can beshared amongst national services.

World Bank

This activity contributed to the establishment of aFund to Combat the Effects of Natural Disasters. This
resilience fund focuses on financing projects tomitigate the impact of the different hazards, inparticular flood and droughts, through both
structural and non-structural measures. This
specialized assistance helped the Government of
Morocco operationalize the first call for proposals,leading to the approval of a US$100 million portfolioof 23 projects.

World Bank
Ministry of Interior

19

TajikHydromet
KyrgyzHydromet
UzHydromet
KazakhHydromet
WMO,
RosHydromet

8,104

50,000List of Grants under Implementation
Country/region

Title

Summary

Implementing
Partners

Totalamount(USD)

Outcome 1 - Technical and Implementation Assistance Grants
Madagascar, Zambia,
Senegal, Cameroon,and Tanzania – SubSaharan Africa

Strengthening thecapacity of National
Hydrological Services
in Sub-Saharan Africa

The technical assistance aims to strengthen thecapacity of National Hydrological Services (NHS) to
produce, translate and communicate hydrologicalinformation. It also aims to help end users access thisinformation, so as to strengthen early warning, andinform investments in climate resilient development.

World Bank
National
Hydrological
Services ofparticipating
countries

450,000

Outcome 2 – Just in time capacity building and Advice

Sri Lanka- South Asia

Development of a
Geographical
Information
Database andcapacity building tobetter manage
Irrigation and FloodControl Systems

Bangladesh – South
Asia

Economic Analysis of
Large-Scale Flood
Protection
Infrastructure in
Greater Dhaka

Cambodia, Lao,
Vietnam – East Asia
and Pacific

Mekong Integrated
Water Resources
Management
Program: HydrometeorologicalExpertise

Myanmar – East Asia
and Pacific

Myanmar Hydrometeorological
Systems and Disaster
Risk Management
Operations

Vietnam – East Asia
and Pacific

Can Tho flood risk
management
systems
development

The proposed assistance will help to; a) develop a
simple manual on how to map irrigation and flood
control infrastructure and build them in a GIS; b)
conduct a series of training programs on mapping
irrigation and flood control infrastructure; and c) fully
map one Irrigation Region

The assistance will carry out an economic analysis oflarge-scale flood protection infrastructure investment
in Greater Dhaka. The analysis will quantify losses
related to flooding events, taking into account futureclimate change and urban growth scenarios, toidentify the most resilient, low regret options.
The assistance will provide specialized technicalassessments of the current capacity of each Lower
Mekong Basin (LMB) hydromet systems in order tohelp guide countries to build up and unify their datacollection, forecasting and service delivery

World Bank
Farmers andIrrigation
Department
engineers

World Bank

50,00043,250World Bank
Mekong River
Commission+ countries

This assistance will provide technical input to (a)assessing the capacity and training needs of the
Department of Meteorology and Hydrology; (b) design
solutions for modernization of hydro-meteorologicalsystems, and (c) bring in knowledge on data-collection
and application of hydro-meteorological information
for flood/drought early warning systems
This assistance will develop a strategy and roadmap
that lays out the data sharing policies, protocols,
technology, capabilities and resources required todevelop an open and integrated climate and disasterrisk data platform

World Bank

This analytical product seeks to: (a) harmonize
frameworks and methodologies for monitoring andevaluation of resilience projects; (b) develop more
systematic results monitoring of resilience-building
operations through a set of project-level results
indicators, targeted technical support and a toolkit;and (c) increase the application of impact evaluation
studies to resilience-building operations

World Bank
project teams
and clients;
Other
Development
Institutions andMultilateralDevelopment
Banks

Department ofMeteorology andHydrology
Ministry ofTransport
World BankCan Tho: local
government andpopulation

36,30038,50049,500Outcome 3- Analytical Products

GlobalResilience Results
Monitoring &Evaluation

20

295,000

List of Grants in pipeline
Country/region

Title

Summary

Implementing
Partners

Totalamount(USD)

World Bank

920,000

Outcome 1 - Technical and Implementation Assistance Grants

Madagascar – SubSaharan Africa

Climate Change
Adaptation andDisaster Risk
Reduction for
Sustainable
Development in
Madagascar

This technical assistance would support
mainstreaming of disaster risk management andclimate change adaptation into the country’s social
economic development, with specific focus onregions and sectors most at risk (proposed area of
focus is plain of Antananarivo).

World Bank

Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz
Republic, Tajikistan,
Uzbekistan/ East
Europe and Central
Asia

This cooperative approach will help strengthen transboundary climate information generation and sharing
and assist participating governments to assess andmonitor climate risks primarily to water resourcesmanagement in mountainous basins

Nepal and Bhutan –South Asia

This proposed technical assistance would support (a)the expansion of current landslide risk assessments inboth Nepal and Bhutan, and (b) engagement on
climate and disaster risk across the two countries. In
Nepal, work will support flood management, nationalrisk assessment and Champions for resilience. In
Bhutan, it is expected to help inform a program of
activities in climate adaptation and disaster risk
management

Swiss Agency for
Development andCooperation,
World
MeteorologicalOrganization,
International Fundfor Saving the Aral
Sea
World Bank
Nepal National
Risk Reduction
Consortium
Department ofDisasterManagement
National
Environmental
Commission

1,200,000

700,000

Outcome 3- Analytical Products

GlobalTools to measuresocio-economic
resilience to natural
disasters and climatechange impacts onpoverty, and to
identify policy
priorities

The objective of this analytical product is to do an indepth application of two socio-economic tools tomeasure socio-economic resilience, quantify thepotential impacts of climate change on poverty, andhelp prioritize policies to minimize the impact ofclimate change and natural disasters on the poor.
This would be an accompanying piece to the WorldBank’s flagship report on Poverty and Climate
Change. The tools would be applied to a minimum of
three countries each, based on country demand.

21

World Bank
National and Subnational
governments

350,000