Adapting to Climate Change: Assessing the World Bank Group ...

CHAPTER 3CLIMATE VARIABILITYwith coordinated responses, including safety net payments in food or cash. They caninvest in SLWM or improved markets as means of increasing drought resilience.Engagement over more than a decade in Ethiopia and Kenya has built capacity in theseinstitutions. The Ethiopian program has demonstrably reduced food insecurity amongpoor and drought-affected households. It also illustrates an approach to proactiveplanning for drought relief.3.43 Another approach to rural risk management is to employ new, index-basedagricultural insurance techniques. Trialed over the past decade, these are expected to becheaper and more implementable than traditional insurance products. However, mostefforts are small pilots. Schemes that have enjoyed significant uptake rates have mostlyrequired significant subsidies. The products do not cover landless rural labor. Impactassessments on poverty and gender are lacking. While it is too soon to give up onfunding household-oriented weather index insurance pilots, alternative includingdeveloping products towards banks (in connection with credit risks) or governments (inconnection with social protection)—trends that are already underway.3.44 As water demand grows, and climate makes supply less reliable, increasedirrigation efficiency is an important way to ease water stress and promote sustainablewater use. But the efficient and equitable allocation of water (at the watershed or basinscale) has been a politically difficult and elusive goal. China has begun to demonstrate apromising new technical approach to water use management, but its replicabilityelsewhere is uncertain.3.45 Effective research and extension services will be critical to help agriculturalistsadapt to unfamiliar new conditions. It can take decades to build capacity, a time scaleconsistent with long-term adaptation planning. Challenges in low-capacity countriesare high, but there have been some successes.Disaster Risk Management: Floods and Storms3.46 Floods and storms already sap development, and will become more burdensomeas the climate changes and as people continue to move to disaster-prone coasts andfloodplains. Many actions that prepare for today’s disasters will also reducevulnerability for tomorrow’s. This chapter reviews lessons from Bank Group experienceon preparing for fast-moving climate disasters.DISASTERS ARE A LARGE AND GROWING DRAG ON DEVELOPMENT3.47 Our understanding of disaster impacts is limited by poor data quality (Box 3-4).Clearly, though, climate-related disasters hurt. EM-DAT (weaknesses acknowledged)indicates an annual average of 43,000 deaths and $13.5 billion in damages from climate46