Leadership in disaster prevention

Between 1996 and 2000 the IDB invested more than $1.5 billion in reconstruction programs to repair the damages caused by natural disasters in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Bank is also providing loans and technical cooperation to ensure that in the future the region will invest more to reduce its vulnerability to natural disasters through both public and private sector activities.

The action plan for natural disasters launched by the IDB in 2000 includes both internal and external initiatives, among them the following:

• Under the new Sectoral Facility for Disaster Prevention—a $150 million fund for operations of up to $5 million each the Bank is currently supporting requests from the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Bolivia, and Ecuador.

• With a contribution of $1.1 million from the Japanese Fund the IDB will develop indicators to measure key aspects of vulnerability on the national scale and to evaluate the performance of policies and instruments used to reduce risk.

• The Bank’s ordinary loans include components to support prevention and mitigation of the effects of disasters in vulnerable sectors. IDB-supported housing programs, for example, include financing for risk assessments at the municipal level. Road programs include designs resistant to destruction in natural disasters.

• In the regional sphere the IDB has strengthened its leadership to promote disaster prevention. It chairs the Organization of American States working group on financing for disaster reduction, and is co-sponsoring a planned hemispheric conference on these problems. Internally, the Bank regularly convenes formal policy dialogues with senior government officials from the region where reports on activities and priorities in the area of natural disaster prevention are discussed.