Development Actions and the Rising Incidence of Disasters (Evaluation Brief 4)

This paper serves as a bridge between the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) report hazards of nature, risks to development (2006) and two upcoming IEG evaluation reports, on the environment and on climate change. Hazards of nature reviewed the Bank's work to prevent and respond to all natural disaster types over a 20-year period. Although the review of 528 project experiences revealed a number of trends, one unexpected insight was that Bank lending in response to tropical storms and floods was increasing at a rate even higher than the sharply rising pace for disasters generally. In response to a new and more accurate understanding of the risk levels that hobbled development gains in borrower countries, IEG opted to devote additional resources to further explore the threat presented by these hazards under the broader theme of natural disasters. This brief is partly based on visits to the field, including recent IEG project-level evaluations and several background papers. This material is supplemented by a comprehensive desk review and an interactive database summarizing the achievements and challenges faced by recent disaster-related projects and based on self and independent evaluation.