Tackling Disaster Risk: Can Innovative Anticipatory Action and Financing Strengthen Developing Country Resilience and Response?

As the world continues to face more frequent and catastrophic extreme weather events, innovative resilience mechanisms, such as anticipatory action and disaster risk financing (DRF), have the potential to help developed and developing countries and non-governmental organizations provide assistance more effectively and efficiently while leveraging international capital markets to expand access to rapid financing. 

The past twenty years have seen great innovations in this space. These range from the creation of the first regional risk pool for the Caribbean in 2007, and a pilot program in Ethiopia expanding into a UN World Food Programme initiative covering over half a million households, to the launch of the Start Network’s Anticipation Window (the first forecast based humanitarian funding mechanism),and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ development of a parametric insurance product to insure their own funding streams (anticipated to come to market in mid-2026).  

Building upon the CSIS Sustainable Development and Resilience Initiative’s recently published report, Profit from Preparation: Innovations and Opportunities in Disaster Risk Financing in Developing Countries, this event will discuss innovations in anticipatory action and DRF, as well as the growing role of public-private partnerships to build resilience across developing country contexts.

Throughout this discussion, panelists will explore the fundamental questions: How can innovations in anticipatory action and DRF strengthen developing countries’ resilience and improve international response in the face of extreme weather events? Can such approaches be embraced at a much bigger scale? 

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This event is made possible through the generous support of the Trafigura Foundation.