This course is joint offering of National Institute of Disaster Management, New Delhi and World Bank Institute, Washington

Global economic losses due to natural disasters are growing. Both direct and insured losses have increased at a faster rate than the number of events, revealing that the same hazard on average is causing larger damages. If disaster impacts are not anticipated and planned for, the diversion of scarce resources to relief and reconstruction efforts can have high opportunity costs in terms of economic development and welfare. Pro-active risk management entails the incorporation of loss mitigation and financing measures into development planning. Besides the macroeconomic effects on economic growth and development, disasters often place intractable burdens on poor households and small businesses. Who pays for catastrophic losses? Who owns the risk? These questions should be addressed by policymakers.

Financial Strategies for Reducing the Economic Impacts of Natural Disasters is part of the Comprehensive Natural Disaster Risk Management Program developed by the World Bank Institute with support from the WB Hazard Management Unit and ProVention Consortium. The course focuses on financial, macroeconomic and development impacts of disasters, trade-offs (costs and benefits) involved in disaster risk management, and offers strategies for reducing the impacts of natural disasters. The course offers financing strategies for risk management.  The course provides policy makers and disaster managers with tools and institutional designs for improved planning and budgeting processes, and national macroeconomic projections. An important question posed in this course is: under what conditions is it advisable for the public authorities to insure roads, bridges and other infrastructure, and when should they rely on traditional post-disaster financing? In answering this question, the course compares alternative financing options for public-sector risks and examines their costs and benefits. Another core question is the extent to which public authorities do and should take financial responsibility for risks to households and businesses. In addressing this question, this course examines strategies for public-private national insurance programs.

Language

The language of the course is English.

Course Format

The course consists of self-paced modules, discussion forums, exercises, readings, case studies, tests and learning via interaction with program faculty and peers. Moreover, for each module there are 2 to 3 audio sessions of expert lectures for 40–45 minutes each. The Course materials shall be provided in a CD to each participant.

Course Expectations

Participants are expected to commit 8–10 hours per week in order to gain the most out of this course in addition to:

• Complete the required reading assignments.
  
• Participate in all online activities. Participation involves posting a minimum of two messages per week that are substantive in nature. The message can be either a new topic or a reply to someone else's message.
  
• Participants are encouraged to post more often than twice a week in order to be involved more deeply into topics.
  
• Participate in videoconferencing and asynchronous chat sessions (if applicable)
  
• Complete assignments and end of course project
  
• Complete course evaluation at the end of the course

Certificate
Joint certificate from NIDM and WBI shall be issued to all successful participants of the course.

System Requirements of the Course
Participants must have access to computers with the following specifications:

·   Hardware: Pentium 166 or faster, 64Mb Memory, CD-ROM, Sound Card.

• Software: Windows 95,98,ME,NT 4,2000 or XP Internet Explorer 4 or higher, Netscape 4 or higher Microsoft Office 2000 (Word,Powerpoint) Acrobat Reader 5. 

The objective of this specialization course is to provide policymakers with tools for financial risk management for assets belonging to households, businesses and the public sector. On the macroeconomic level, it provides a methodology for assessing the risks to public infrastructure and the effects of natural disasters on economic growth.

The course consists of presentations, case studies, readings and an end of course exercise. During the course, instructors and facilitators from National Institute of Disaster Management and the World Bank Institute will guide the participants and evaluate the project work. The course consists of one modules and an end of course exercise. The module covers following sessions:

•  Session 1: The Economic Impacts of Natural Disasters on Developing Countries
  
  This introductory presentation examines the economic losses from natural disasters to households, businesses, and public infrastructure. It provides an overview of the human and economic losses at the global scale and presents the uneven distribution of these losses in developing and developed countries. The session reviews the typical pattern of disaster risk as it relates to economic development. It also examines the question of how disaster losses are financed in different national political contexts. Finally, important implications for the management of disaster risks for households, businesses and the public sector are discussed.
  

•  Session 2: Financing Mechanisms for Pro-active Disaster Risk Management for the Public Sector
  
  This session presents tools for developing and evaluating national strategies to ensure that governments have sufficient resources for financing disaster relief and recovery. It examines options available for national governments to finance losses to critical public infrastructure, including traditional measures, such as post-disaster borrowing, and new tools, such as insurance or contingent credit. It introduces the concept of “financing gap” and demonstrates that governments should only insure public assets if they can not raise sufficient capital for reconstruction from traditional, post-disaster financing instruments. Using specific country examples the session demonstrates how models can be useful for estimating the financial gap.
  

• Session 3: The Government’s Role in Financing Disaster Risks to Households and Businesses
  
  This session reviews ex-ante and ex-post risk-financing arrangements in developed and developing countries. A dilemma facing many governments is how much to spend for assisting households and businesses after a disaster. Generous post-disaster support wreaks havoc with national budgets and does not provide incentives for ex-ante risk reduction measures. Yet equity considerations arise since poor households and small businesses – especially in developing countries - cannot afford extensive pre-disaster risk reduction and insurance. This session will present policy options for combining public responsibility with that of private individuals, and will give additional policy options for countries that do not have an affordable insurance infrastructure.
  

• End of Course Project
  
  To meet the course completion requirement the participants are required to submit an end-of course case study/project. The objective of the course project is to apply newly acquired knowledge to build a case study of a natural disaster risk management system in a selected city. In the course project participants should provide a critical assessment of risks present in the city and the specific ways in which the current city disaster risk management system addresses or doesn’t address these risks. The project should be prepared in a case study format. 
  

National Institute of Disaster Management, New Delhi, India