WASH­ING­TON, Nov. 8, 2021 (WORLD BANK) — Strength­en­ing gov­ern­ment ef­fi­cien­cy, em­pow­er­ing house­holds and busi­ness­es, and re­duc­ing fu­ture risks by im­prov­ing spa­tial plan­ning and nat­ur­al coastal pro­tec­tion are some of the key rec­om­men­da­tions to boost the Caribbean’s abil­i­ty to bounce back from shocks, ac­cord­ing to a new World Bank flag­ship re­port. 

The re­port, 360° Re­silience: A Guide to Pre­pare the Caribbean for a New Gen­er­a­tion of Shocks, al­so con­clud­ed that the gen­uine progress of one of the world’s most nat­ur­al haz­ard-prone re­gions in im­prov­ing its re­silience has so far of­ten failed to pro­duce in­clu­sive eco­nom­ic growth. 

The re­port, which cov­ers 17 Caribbean coun­tries, ar­gues that a more com­pre­hen­sive ap­proach to re­silience can help tack­le the chal­lenges posed by cli­mate change, new dis­eases, and chang­ing so­cioe­co­nom­ic con­texts. It fo­cus­es on the dif­fer­ent af­fect­ed par­ties, from gov­ern­ments to in­di­vid­u­als, to help coun­tries in this re­gion un­der­stand cur­rent strengths and weak­ness­es across sec­tors and iden­ti­fy pri­or­i­ties for build­ing re­silience to a new gen­er­a­tion of shocks.

“Cli­mate change is in­creas­ing the in­ten­si­ty and fre­quen­cy of nat­ur­al dis­as­ters. Oth­er shocks, like the COVID19 pan­dem­ic, have made it clear that greater ef­forts are need­ed,” said Car­los Fe­lipe Jaramil­lo, Vice Pres­i­dent of Latin Amer­i­ca and Caribbean Re­gion, World Bank. “For the Caribbean, a re­gion al­ready vul­ner­a­ble to ex­ter­nal shocks, now is the time to bet­ter pre­pare for the nat­ur­al dis­as­ters of the fu­ture.” 

Just this year, hur­ri­canes, trop­i­cal storms, earth­quakes, and threats of vol­canic erup­tion un­der­mined Caribbean economies and liveli­hoods. Gov­ern­ments and the pri­vate sec­tor, who un­der­stand well how vul­ner­a­ble the re­gion is to these threats, have got bet­ter at prepar­ing for them. The ma­jor dam­age nat­ur­al haz­ards cause to in­fra­struc­ture and pri­vate sec­tor ac­tiv­i­ty are short-lived thanks to mech­a­nisms in place to help economies re­cov­er rapid­ly. Gov­ern­ments have made great strides in in­vest­ing in dis­as­ter pre­pared­ness, dis­as­ter risk fi­nanc­ing, and re­gion­al ear­ly warn­ing sys­tems.

How­ev­er, pri­or re­silience strate­gies and ef­forts will not be enough to han­dle new and in­ten­si­fy­ing chal­lenges giv­en the volatil­i­ty posed by cli­mate change, en­vi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion, and changes in tourism de­mand, ac­cord­ing to the re­port. For ex­am­ple, the num­ber of peo­ple ex­posed to floods in the re­gion in­creased 70% be­tween 2000 and 2020 and will keep ris­ing with cli­mate change, while 72% of in­fra­struc­ture as­sets are ex­posed to at least two haz­ards. Fur­ther­more, un­der a mod­er­ate cli­mate change sce­nario, 13% of sea­side ho­tels could ex­pe­ri­ence beach loss by 2050 due to sea lev­el rise, and in some coun­tries an­nu­al coastal pro­tec­tion costs could con­sis­tent­ly ex­ceed 5% of GDP. 

“The long-term progress achieved by most Caribbean coun­tries de­spite their high ex­po­sure to shocks is com­mend­able,” said Lil­ia Bu­run­ci­uc, World Bank Coun­try Di­rec­tor for Caribbean Coun­tries.

She added: “How­ev­er, with the so­cioe­co­nom­ic pain caused by the pan­dem­ic, the re­gion is even more ex­posed. De­spite progress, many coun­tries in the re­gion are con­strained by high debt lev­els, pover­ty and hu­man cap­i­tal de­vel­op­ment chal­lenges. These is­sues leave lit­tle room for in­creased gov­ern­ment spend­ing, but adap­ta­tion ef­forts are im­per­a­tive to avoid more se­ri­ous eco­nom­ic im­pact in the fu­ture.”

In this con­text, the re­port stress­es how these new chal­lenges need a holis­tic ap­proach to re­silience across all sec­tors and ac­tors, in­clud­ing in­no­va­tion with tech­nol­o­gy. A more con­sis­tent ap­proach is rec­om­mend­ed, build­ing on strong in­sti­tu­tions, ro­bust an­a­lyt­ics, and more trans­par­ent pri­or­i­ti­za­tion. 

“The re­port de­vel­oped a traf­fic light sys­tem to help fo­cus and pri­or­i­tize ac­tions, iden­ti­fy gaps, fa­cil­i­tate tar­get set­ting, and mon­i­tor progress across the mul­ti­ple as­pects of re­silience. It sug­gests a frame­work that gov­ern­ments and or­ga­ni­za­tions can use to as­sess their re­silience ef­forts,” said Julie Rozen­berg, World Bank Se­nior Econ­o­mist.

While this 360-de­gree ap­proach to re­silience needs to be tai­lored to each coun­try’s spe­cif­ic con­text and cho­sen path­way to­ward re­cov­ery, the re­port urges Caribbean gov­ern­ments to fo­cus on three main ar­eas to boost re­silience and bet­ter pre­pare for the shocks and stress­es of the fu­ture:

In­creas­ing gov­ern­ment ef­fi­cien­cy by im­prov­ing in­vest­ment man­age­ment and in­fra­struc­ture main­te­nance, clar­i­fy­ing pro­cure­ment rules, al­lo­cat­ing bud­gets trans­par­ent­ly, lay­er­ing risk fi­nanc­ing strate­gies, and giv­ing greater at­ten­tion to da­ta and dig­i­ti­za­tion. 

Em­pow­er­ing house­holds and the pri­vate sec­tor by in­creas­ing both the cov­er­age and ad­e­qua­cy of so­cial pro­tec­tion, strength­en­ing work­er skills, im­prov­ing ac­cess to fi­nance, and fa­cil­i­tat­ing ac­cess to risk in­for­ma­tion. 

Re­duc­ing fu­ture phys­i­cal risk by pro­tect­ing nat­ur­al bar­ri­ers, bet­ter en­force­ment of build­ing codes and stan­dards, sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly con­sid­er­ing emerg­ing and chang­ing risks, and plan­ning to build back bet­ter af­ter shocks. 

The re­port, 360° Re­silience: A Guide to Pre­pare the Caribbean for a New Gen­er­a­tion of Shocks, was pre­pared by the World Bank and with sup­port from the Eu­ro­pean Union in the frame­work of the Caribbean Re­gion­al Re­silience Build­ing Fa­cil­i­ty, man­aged by the Glob­al Fa­cil­i­ty for Dis­as­ter Re­duc­tion and Re­cov­ery.

It can be ac­cessed at… https://open­knowl­edge.world­bank.org/han­dle/10986/36405