Preface
The World Bank’s Hazard Management Unit (HMU) (formerly the Disaster Management Facility), in partnership with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), has taken on an initiative under the umbrella of the ProVention Consortium to develop mechanisms for poor households and communities to better manage disaster risk. This guide is part of the effort.
The report, Microfinance and Disaster Risk Management: Experiences and Lessons Learned, written by Enrique Pantoja in July 2002, provides the basis for much of this guide. His research followed a colloquium held in February 2000, entitled Microfinance: Disaster Risk Reduction for the Poor, organized by the World Bank, UNDP and the ProVention Consortium. The goal of these activities was to explore how financial services might help the poor better manage natural disaster risk. The authors thank Enrique Pantoja for his work on past experience, and Yasemin Aysan, formerly of UNDP, for her support to these activities in their early stages.
The cooperation and assistance of several different organizations allowed for the collection of tools and resources available in this guide. Mary McVay (SEEP BDS Working Group) assisted greatly in finding a tool for Microleasing. Kimberly Tilock (CHF) designed the tool for housing finance. Mary Miller (DAI) provided appropriate resources for best practices and Information Systems (IS) questions. David Grace (WOCCU) provided assistance in finding information on remittances.
Finally, some of the ideas presented in this guide come from the experiences of Fundo de Crédito Comunitário, a World Relief International Program, during the floods in Mozambique in 2000 and its experiences of putting together a disaster response plan in the aftermath.
Funding for the study was provided by the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the umbrella of the ProVention Consortium. Their generous support is greatly appreciated.