Opening Remarks by Joy Phumaphi, VP and Head of the Human Development Network

Speakers:
Saroj Kumar Jha, Program Manager, GFDRR
Bassam Ramadan, Sector Manager, Social Protection

About the Toolkit

Disasters are increasingly recognized as a threat to sustainable development, poverty reduction, and achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.  When a disaster occurs, communities and other informal arrangements are typically the first line of defense for poor households.  Community strength is thus critical for ensuring that the poor can cope with disasters, and efforts to build this capacity should be included in relevant development projects.

The World Bank’s Social Protection Team has designed a toolkit, “Building Resilient Communities: Risk Management and Response to Natural Disasters through Social Funds and Community-Driven Development Operations,” to help Bank Task Teams working on social funds and community-driven development (CDD) operations identify disaster risk management issues in their programs and projects and design and implement appropriate responses.  Introducing concepts of Community-Based Disaster Risk Management (CBDRM), the Toolkit draws upon experiences of social funds and CDD operations in several countries including Malawi, Pakistan, and Honduras and established international good practice to identify operational areas where social fund/ CDD operations have a comparative advantage for achieving successful results in reducing natural disaster risks and impacts on poor and vulnerable communities.

This program of work was supported by TFESSD and GFDRR.

Background Material:

Presentation by Bassam Ramadan - Social Protection and Labor, the World Bank.

Presentation by Saroj Kumar Jha - Program Manager, GFDRR, The World Bank.

Toolkit "Building Resilient Communities: Risk Management and Response to Natural Disasters through Social Funds and Community-Driven Development Operations"