Suchergebnisse

Climate change is exacerbating the frequency and severity of catastrophic weather events around the world. The economic impact of these events on developing countries can be severe, and roll back years of development gains. To help face this growing challenge, the governments of developing countries need improved access to insurance and alternative risk transfer mechanisms to manage their exposure to climate risk. Multilateral development banks, such as the World Bank, can help. For example, they can catalyze the creation of sovereign risk pools and facilitate access for developing country governments to the substantial reinsurance capacity of the capital markets. The World Bank's role in creating the Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance Facility, and the World Bank catastrophe bond issue in 2014 for that Facility, serve as models for this kind of assistance. In order to maximize the developmental impact of these kinds of interventions, donor governments, acting through multilateral development banks, should encourage beneficiary countries to invest in ex ante climate risk preparedness and resilience as a condition of receiving this kind of development assistance.

Experience teaches that the Framework Convention on Global Health (FCGH) will need a financing facility if it is to garner widespread acceptance among low-income countries. The promise of financing is a well-established carrot to encourage countries to assume new convention-imposed obligations that will be costly to carry out. Promising to provide financing as part of an intergovernmental call for commitment also activates a rights-based approach. For donor and recipient countries, a funding facility embodies an actualization of their commitment to a convention's collective undertaking to address a given issue. Donors signal their commitment through their contributions; recipients signal commitment through their efforts to use any support received to achieve the convention's objectives. This essay highlights the need for an FCGH financing facility, provides a preliminary sketch of what it should look like, and urges the facility's creators to adopt a bold and innovative approach that draws upon, but improves, current precedents. Adapted from the source document.