The World Bank has launched an initiative to provide a multi-peril risk assessment of natural disaster risks, including floods, earthquakes and selected landslides within the Central Asia region. 

As such, the Central Asian nations will benefit from a better understanding of their natural disaster risks, which could eventually lead to better use of risk transfer, insurance and reinsurance capacity in the region. The programme will strengthen the region’s resilience to natural disasters and climate risks via enhanced financial resilience, capacity to identify risks and improved disaster risk management. That will include a better understanding of how natural disaster risk affects the population, buildings and, in general, the economies of all five Central Asian countries.

“This is a much-awaited multi-peril risk assessment of natural disasters in Central Asia,” said Almabek Aidakeev, national coordinator for Sendai Framework Program from Kyrgyzstan. “The results of the assessment will equip us with required data to better prepare ourselves and our communities for natural disasters.”

“Deepening the understanding of disaster risks through its quantification and assessment will play a crucial role for governments in Central Asia and inform their interventions and strengthen their preparedness for natural disasters,” said Johannes Stenbaek Madsen, head of cooperation at the Delegation of the European Union to the Republic of Kazakhstan.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has previously looked at catastrophe bonds as part of a disaster risk transfer solution for use in the Europe and Commonwealth of Independent States (ECIS) region. These countries share a lot of similarities to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in terms of disaster perils faced and the need to ensure governments are financially prepared for such disasters.