This course is joint offering of Latin America and the Caribbean Hazard Management Unit of the World Bank and United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR).

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.  It 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 Spanish.

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 30–35 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

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.  

This specialization course targets officials from finance ministries, planning organizations, public work agencies in order to improve the planning and budgeting processes, and macroeconomic projections in Central American Countries (Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama). The course will be useful to local government officials, policymakers, consultants, researchers and professors of training institutions, who are interested in development challenges and issues related to natural disaster risk management. Once the course has ended, participants from training institutions are welcome to replicate this training for their staff, for central and local government officials. Donors working in hazard and disaster related projects could also apply to attend the course.

 

Course Overview
Disasters have a major impact on the living conditions, economic performance, and environmental assets of affected countries. Consequences may be long-term and may cause irreversible damages to environmental, economic and social structures.
Statistics show that disasters cause the most significant and irreversible damage in developing countries, where the poorest and most vulnerable population groups are disproportionately impacted. By contrast, in the developed world, a considerable degree of protection against disasters has been achieved, as a result of effective prevention, mitigation and planning measures that reduce vulnerability. But even with these impressive results, damages in these countries have risen due to greater concentration and value of societal activities.

To reduce the long-term impact of disasters, and to achieve sustainable growth, affected countries must (i) assign financial resources for prevention and mitigation of the foreseeable impact of disasters, and (ii) ensure that once disasters occur, reconstruction investments incorporate vulnerability-reduction measures. This latter point should be underscored in light of reconstruction efforts undertaken by many countries. In most cases, we observe that vulnerability is reconstructed along with destroyed assets, mainly because of scarce resources available beyond the emergency and humanitarian assistance stage. 

The course offers financing strategies for risk management. It focuses on financial, economic and development impacts of disasters, trade-offs (costs and benefits) involved in disaster risk financing and mechanisms for financing disaster risk in a developing country. The course provides policy makers and disaster managers with tools and institutional designs for improved planning and budgeting processes, and national macroeconomic projections.  

Coordinator: Berna Yekeler: byekeler@worldbank.org