In an era of overlapping and often intertwined crises, how well countries can prepare for and respond to shocks is crucial. The World Bank Group’s recently launched expanded Crisis Toolkit equips developing countries to do just that, whether they’re faced with natural disasters such as hurricanes or earthquakes, or public health emergencies like pandemics. This expanded Crisis Toolkit is designed to fill gaps based on lessons learned from previous crisis response, and substantially expands tools available to countries to protect them in times of crisis and enable faster and more effective recovery from disasters.
00:00 Introducing the topic and expert 01:50 World Bank’s Expanded Crisis Toolkit 03:03 How the toolkit helps client countries 05:38 Crisis preparedness 08:08 Closure
Transcript
[00:00] Ed Mountfield: It's about recognizing that we can no longer afford to treat a crisis as a surprise. So this is about helping countries to be better prepared to respond when crisis comes. And it's about ultimately about saving lives.
Srimathi Sridhar: This is a critical point in history, and the global landscape for development is fraught with challenges. Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic, the world has been forced to grapple with crisis, often overlapping and intertwined in nature, including conflict, climate change, and economic shocks. How well countries can respond in the challenging era of crises is crucial. Well, on this episode of Expert Answers, we look to this very issue of the recently launched expanded crisis toolkit from the World Bank Group. It can better equip developing countries to prepare for and respond to crises from natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes to public health emergencies like pandemics. This expanded toolkit is designed to fill gaps based on lessons learned from previous crisis response, and it substantially expands the tools available to countries to protect them and enable faster and more effective recovery from disasters. Ed Mountfield, Vice President for Operations, Policy and Country Services joins me on Expert Answers to explain how these tools will empower countries in the face of crises and put them on a path toward resilient sustainable development.
[01:50] Ed, welcome to Expert Answers. Thank you so much for being on our show here today, and we're very excited to have you on because you're about to tell us about the World Bank Group's new expanded crisis toolkit. So tell me what this toolkit is. I know it marks a major milestone in the institution's evolution. So what is the significance of this?
Ed Mountfield: So Sri, we are living in a very fast changing world, and our World Bank Group evolution is about recognizing that we can no longer afford business as usual. So at the World Bank, we've always been very dedicated to a mission of ending poverty and helping countries to become more prosperous. But increasingly with a series of global challenges like climate change, like pandemics, like increasing fragility conflict and violence, we are seeing big setbacks in our work to end poverty. So this is about recognizing that we need to work in a different way. We need to stay focused on ending poverty, but we need to make sure that that's on a livable planet. Our new crisis toolkit is a key part of that. In a nutshell, I would say it's about recognizing that we can no longer afford to treat a crisis as a surprise. This is about helping countries to be better prepared to respond when crisis comes, and it's about ultimately about saving lives.
[03:03] Srimathi Sridhar: Well, let's get into just that and what this toolkit provides, Ed. Can you tell me a little bit more about how the toolkit helps our client countries? And I'm wondering if you can give me an example or a scenario of how the toolkit could be used if a country were to be hit by say, a natural disaster.
Ed Mountfield: So think of a country in East Asia that's been hit by an earthquake and it needs to fund emergency shelter. Or think of an island in the Caribbean that's been hit by hurricane and it needs to pay emergency social protection to people. Think of a country in the Horn of Africa that's being plagued by locusts and needs to fund a spraying campaign. Think of a country in the Sahel that's been hit by a drought and it needs to pay for emergency water and food. The new crisis toolkit will give us four options. First, we can allow our borrower countries to re-deploy a portion of their World Bank loan book for emergency response. So at any time many of our countries have a book of loans. Some of them are already dispersed, but some of them are still getting started and those funds can be quickly repurposed. Secondly, we are scaling up our ability to offer prearranged contingent financing to our countries to help them to meet the extra budgetary costs to the government that can come when a crisis strikes. And having this in place can mean that that response, again, can all be that bit faster. Thirdly, when a really big crisis strikes, sometimes the fiscal impacts can be even more acute. And so if a country's really devastated by a big earthquake or a hurricane, they need to rebuild. And we are stepping up our ability to help countries to pay for catastrophe insurance, which allows them to basically buy insurance. That means that they get a big payout when a really big crisis comes so that they don't have to add to their country's debts to pay for that response. And fourthly, we have started to offer our small states, particularly islands that are sometimes very vulnerable to hurricanes and increasingly will be in the face of climate change, a new tool called a Climate Resilient Debt Clause, which basically allows a country to ask us to pause the debt servicing to us, the World Bank, when a crisis comes so that gives them, again, extra fiscal space so that they can invest and save lives.
[05:38] Srimathi Sridhar: So it sounds like the toolkit really offers these different tools, avenues for countries to access for crisis response. Now, Ed, from what I understand, the other side of the toolkit, of course, is also about crisis preparedness, right? So it's not just about how countries can better respond to crises. It's how can they build that longer term resilience and be better prepared for future shocks. So can you talk to me more about this side of the toolkit?
Ed Mountfield: Yes. It's not just about having countries able to have extra money when a crisis comes along. It has to be part of a package where countries invest to be ready for crises. So that can mean a whole range of things from making sure that you have emergency legislation in place that gives a government extra flexibility without having to go back to parliament to take emergency action. It can be about having emergency planning, an emergency response strategy in place for a country, having institutions like emergency response committees at different levels of government. It can be about making basic things, like making sure that there's evacuation signposting in a hurricane or earthquake vulnerable place, or making sure that there are appropriate emergency supplies in hospitals in case a pandemic comes along, or the ability to conduct emergency testing programs and so on. And then I think the other important part of it is about making sure that we build and we invest in projects in ways that are resilient to crisis. So starting this year, we've been working to align 100% of our operations with the Paris agreements. So that means, of course, helping countries to make sure that they're investing in ways that are low carbon and to help to mitigate climate change. But it's also about making sure that countries plan for the eventuality of climate change and the climate change that's already happening, recognizing that if you're building a school in a floodplain, you need to design it in a way that means it's not going to be underwater. Or if you are investing in agriculture in a very drought prone area, that's going to become more drought prone, you use drought-resistant seeds. It's about thinking about how you can build adaptive social protection. That means that your social protection systems are able to provide additional support to people when a crisis strikes, and that's also something that we're investing in. Once again, we can't afford to treat crisis as a surprise.
[08:08] Srimathi Sridhar: So really about thinking ahead and thinking proactively to avert disasters. Well, Ed, I want to thank you so much for coming on Expert Answers to talk to us more about this new expanded crisis toolkit. From our conversation here, I really feel that it is a crucial and pivotal way for developing countries to better respond to crises, but also better prepare against future shocks and build that long-term resilience like you just spoke about. So thank you for coming on here.
Ed Mountfield: Thanks. It's been a pleasure.
Srimathi Sridhar: Thank you. A huge thank you to Ed for joining me on Expert Answers to break down the World Bank Group's new expanded crisis toolkit. As you can tell, this toolkit could be a game changer, and it will be a crucial means for developing countries as they seek to better respond to crises and build long-term resilience. To learn more about this crisis toolkit, be sure to visit our website, www.worldbank.org, where we have a fact sheet and infographic and a blog co-authored by Anna Bjerde, our Managing Director of Operations, and Ed, on the impact of this new expanded crisis toolkit. I'm Srimathi Sridhar. Thanks for joining me on Expert Answers, and see you again soon.
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