Developing countries, such as many South-East and South Asia countries with middle-low incomes, typically lack financial protection against the impacts of disasters and rely heavily on ex-post measures, such as donor assistance, in order to meet their financing needs. As such, those countries are among the ones that would benefit the most from Disaster Risk Financing (DRF) products.
Based on this demand and at the request of Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, the World Bank’s Crisis and Disaster Risk Finance team initiated the development of a system to support rapid response financing to flooding events in the region. The project, named “South East Asia Flood Monitoring and Risk Assessment for Regional DRF Mechanism” led by Deltares (NL) in partnership with CIMA Foundation has resulted in an IT platform able to estimate the number of people affected by a flood, by a combination of real-time models, EO data and ground observations. The combination of diverse types of input data for a rapid estimate of flood impact is considered highly innovative and responds to the demand from World Bank country clients to be provided with technical and financial tools and means to manage emergencies and save lives. The project is now in its second phase that aims to strengthen the Satellite based products used in the platform in connection with the eDrift project