ADB's response to natural disasters and disaster risks: special evaluation study

This evaluation study assesses ADB’s response to natural disasters and disaster risks, and explores ways to improve ADB operations in these areas. It distinguishes between two broad categories of disaster-related operations—those in disaster prevention and those in disaster recovery. The study calls for ADB to consider giving greater emphasis to disaster prevention in its dialogue with clients, if not in actual lending, particularly in the many high-risk countries. It also recommends ADB to integrate climate change and natural disaster programs, and to improve its capacity in both. It asserts that additional expertise is required for profiling natural disaster vulnerability zones, managing disaster aftermaths, and increasing funds for disaster risk financing, and calls for ADB to create the demand in countries for disaster risk reduction activities to tackle the increasing risks.

The overall study considers: (i) the relevance of ADB’s disaster management policy and operations in the evolving context of increasing natural disasters in Asia and the Pacific; (ii) the responsiveness of disaster risk management (or risk indicators used) and disaster recovery management as practiced over 1995–2011; and (iii) the results achieved and anticipated to be achieved over the same period. It focuses on three types of natural events: floods, storms (cyclones, typhoons), and earthquakes (including tsunami). It explores good practices for disaster response and disaster risk reduction (i.e. disaster prevention, mitigation, and preparedness) in the implementation of ADB operations and country programming. These are reflected in the lessons learned section in the last chapter.