WB to put up Phl climate change fund

MANILA, Philippines - The World Bank is mobilizing the international community and the private sector to put together a special fund to enable the Philippines to deal with climate change and natural catastrophes.

Rachel Kyte, appointed on Jan. 1 this year as the first special envoy on climate change of the World Bank Group, said the Philippine government pitched the idea of a special disaster resilience fund about a month after Super Typhoon Yolanda left thousands of people dead and devastated cities and towns in the Visayas in November last year.

The Climate and Disaster Resilience Fund will include “financial innovations” such as insurance mechanisms that can be paid out quickly to disaster victims. Kyte said the funding program is also being designed by the World Bank together with the Philippine government to attract technical assistance and private investments in disaster-resilient infrastructure.

Disaster resilience must be built at the national, local and household levels, Kyte said. If successful, this comprehensive national resilience strategy will be replicated by the World Bank in other countries.

Kyte, who arrived in Manila last Monday for the ongoing 23rdWorld Economic Forum (WEF) on East Asia, said the creation of her special position on top of her regular one as World Bank vice president showed the Group’s concern that climate change has become a threat to economic stability.

She said the Philippine government initially asked the World Bank if public funds could be leveraged for economic assistance during disasters.

“We’re responding to a sense of urgency on the part of the government,” Kyte told The STAR in an interview the other night.

Kyte flew to Tacloban City, Palo and other typhoon-hit areas in Leyte last Tuesday to inspect the progress of the reconstruction, to which the World Bank Group has contributed a total of $1 billion so far.

She said the disaster zones remained “extremely vulnerable” if hit again by a similar weather disturbance.

Kyte did not comment on criticisms over the pace of the work, but said “we’re trying to troubleshoot with the government to pick up the speed of reconstruction.”

Addressing the opening plenary of the WEF on East Asia yesterday, President Aquino assured the public that all government policies are now geared toward addressing climate change.

The government is “building back better” and “building resilience,” the President said in the presence of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung of Vietnam, and WEF founder and executive chairman Klaus Schwab.

The World Bank has been working with its clients in achieving the twin goals of eradicating poverty by 2030 and building shared prosperity or equitable growth.

But achieving these goals “will be extremely difficult if not impossible” unless climate change is addressed, Kyte said.

As a result of natural calamities and other consequences of climate change, she said, developing countries that have come out of poverty are in danger of slipping back.

After major typhoons and other natural calamities, reconstruction of disaster-hit areas “can break the back” of many developing countries, Kyte observed. The World Bank wants to come in and build resilience, emphasizing prevention rather than response after disaster strikes.

When Kyte leaves the Philippines tomorrow, a World Bank technical team will continue working with the Philippine government in designing the special fund.

ASEM conference

Meanwhile, around 150 senior government officials, scientists, academics, policymakers, industry and business leaders, non-government organizations and representatives of regional and international organizations from Asia and Europe will gather in Manila on June 4 to 6 for the Asia Europe Meeting (ASEM) Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction and Management.

“The ASEM Manila Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction and Management: Post Haiyan – A Way Forward” is a Philippine initiative adopted by 49 heads of states and governments, presidents of the European Union and the secretary-general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Maria Zeneida Angara Collinson, Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Assistant Secretary for European Affairs and the ASEM conference’s chairperson, said the international gathering will engage in discussions and debates on whether current international practices and principles still hold in light of the Philippine experience with Super Typhoon Yolanda.

A sharing of best practices, innovation and technology for disaster risk reduction and management, as well as how best to reconstruct and rehabilitate devastated areas, will also be discussed in the four working groups of the ASEM Conference, which will be chaired by the EU, the Philippines, Switzerland and Japan.

EU Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Kristalina Georgieva and Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction Margareta Wahlstrom will join Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario, Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin and other Cabinet officials in making plenary statements during the conference. –With Rainier Allan Ronda