Operational Plan for Integrated Disaster Risk Management 2014–2020

Executive Summary

Strategy 2020 identifies disaster and emergency assistance as one of the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) areas of operations, reflecting the considerable challenges that natural hazards pose to development in Asia and the Pacific. The region is subject to all major types of natural hazard and dominates disaster impact rankings, including with regard to loss of life. Direct physical losses are increasing more rapidly than regional gross domestic product as both exposure and vulnerability to natural hazards continue to grow. The intensity and, in some areas, frequency of climatic extreme events is expected to increase with climate change, potentially exacerbating this trend in future years. Disaster risk now presents one of the most serious threats to inclusive sustainable socioeconomic development in Asia and the Pacific and has a particularly detrimental impact on the poorest members of society. Poverty and vulnerability to natural hazards are closely linked and mutually reinforcing. Disasters are a source of hardship and distress, potentially forcing the near-poor temporarily below the poverty line and contributing to more persistent, chronic poverty. The poor, in turn, are among the most vulnerable to natural hazards.

Between August 1987 and December 2013, ADB approved $19.5 billion for a total of 631 disaster risk management (DRM) and DRM-related loans, grants, and technical assistance projects.
Just over a third of this assistance was provided for post-disaster response. ADB’s engagement in this area has been guided by a succession of policies. The current policy, the 2004 Disaster and Emergency Assistance Policy (DEAP), established three key objectives: (i) to strengthen support for disaster risk reduction in developing member countries (DMCs), (ii) to provide rehabilitation and reconstruction assistance following a disaster, and (iii) to leverage ADB’s DRM activities by developing partnerships. A companion DEAP Action Plan was launched in 2008 to enhance the implementation of the DEAP. More recently, ADB has also ventured into the relatively new area of disaster risk financing.

The Operational Plan for Integrated Disaster Risk Management, 2014–2020 (hereafter IDRM Operational Plan) builds on ADB’s significant support for DRM and good performance in this area, while remaining in alignment with the 2004 DEAP. It seeks to (i) promote an integrated disaster risk management (IDRM) approach in ADB’s operations, supporting related products and business processes to strengthen disaster resilience and enhance residual risk management and encouraging a more coordinated, systematic approach to DRM; (ii) further strengthen DMC IDRM capabilities, knowledge, and resources to reduce disaster risk and to respond to disaster events in a timely, cost-efficient manner; and (iii) mobilize additional public and private partnerships and resources for IDRM. This operational plan succeeds the 2008 DEAP Action Plan.