World Bank Group Launches Groundbreaking Financing Facility to Protect Poorest Countries against Pandemics

Posted on 28 May 2016 by davidrcurry

World Bank Group Launches Groundbreaking Financing Facility to Protect Poorest Countries against Pandemics
May 21, 2016 – PRESS RELEASE
First-ever insurance and pandemic bonds will save lives and protect economies

SENDAI, Japan, May 21, 2016—The World Bank Group today launched the Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF), an innovative, fast-disbursing global financing mechanism designed to protect the world against deadly pandemics, which will create the first-ever insurance market for pandemic risk. Japan, which holds the G7 Presidency, committed the first $50 million in funding toward the new initiative.

“Pandemics pose some of the biggest threats in the world to people’s lives and to economies, and for the first time we will have a system that can move funding and teams of experts to the sites of outbreaks before they spin out of control,” said Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group. “This facility addresses a long, collective failure in dealing with pandemics. The Ebola crisis in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone taught all of us that we must be much more vigilant to outbreaks and respond immediately to save lives and also to protect economic growth.”…

…The new facility will accelerate both global and national responses to future outbreaks with pandemic potential. It was built and designed in collaboration with the World Health Organization and the private sector, introducing a new level of rigor into both the financing and the response.

“Recent years have seen a dramatic resurgence of the threat from emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases,” said Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization. “WHO fully supports the Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility as a critical contribution to global health security and a crucial line of defence against high-threat pathogens.”

The PEF includes an insurance window, which combines funding from the reinsurance markets with the proceeds of World Bank-issued pandemic (catastrophe, or Cat) bonds, as well as a complementary cash window. This will be the first time World Bank Cat Bonds have been used to combat infectious diseases. In the event of an outbreak, the PEF will release funds quickly to countries and qualified international responding agencies.

The insurance window will provide coverage up to $500 million for an initial period of three years for outbreaks of infectious diseases most likely to cause major epidemics, including new Orthomyxoviruses (e.g. new influenza pandemic virus A, B and C), Coronaviridae (e.g. SARS, MERS), Filoviridae (e.g. Ebola, Marburg) and other zoonotic diseases (e.g. Crimean Congo, Rift Valley, Lassa fever). Parametric triggers designed with publicly available data will determine when the money would be released, based on the size, severity and spread of the outbreak.

The complementary cash window will provide more flexible funding to address a larger set of emerging pathogens, which may not yet meet the activation criteria for the insurance window.
All 77 countries eligible for financing from the International Development Association, the World Bank Group’s fund for the poorest countries, will be eligible to receive coverage from the PEF. The PEF is expected to be operational later this year…

…Four global expert panels that were convened over the past year in the wake of the Ebola crisis concluded that the world must urgently step up its capacity for a swift response to outbreaks before they become more deadly and costly pandemics.

The PEF will do a number of important things to prevent another Ebola crisis:
:: It will insure the world’s poorest countries against the threat of a pandemic.
:: In the event of a severe infectious disease outbreak, it will release funds quickly to the countries and/or to international responders, to accelerate the response—saving lives and reducing human suffering.
:: By mobilizing an earlier, faster, better planned and coordinated response, it will reduce the costs to countries and their people for response and recovery.
:: It will promote greater global and national investments in preparing for future outbreaks and strengthening national health systems.
:: It will combine public and private resources to advance global health security, and create a new insurance market for managing pandemic risk.

The World Bank Group estimates that if the PEF had existed in mid-2014 as the Ebola outbreak was spreading rapidly in West Africa, it could have mobilized an initial $100 million as early as July to severely limit the spread and severity of the epidemic. Instead, money at that scale did not begin to flow until three months later. During that three month period, the number of Ebola cases increased tenfold. The Ebola epidemic has claimed more than 11,300 lives and cost at least $10 billion to date. International assistance has totaled more than $7 billion for Ebola response and recovery.

World Cities Report 2016, Urbanization and Development: Emerging Futures

Posted on 28 May 2016 by davidrcurry

World Cities Report 2016, Urbanization and Development: Emerging Futures
UN-Habitat :: United Nations Human Settlements Programme, 2016 :: 262 pages
Full report pdf: http://wcr.unhabitat.org/?wcr_process_download=1&download_id=117118

Press Release
UN-Habitat launches the World Cities Report 2016, Urbanization and Development: Emerging Futures
New York 18 May 2016— The new global flagship report on sustainable urban development launched by UN-Habitat on Wednesday, states that a New Urban Agenda is needed to unlock the transformative power of cities. The World Cities Report 2016, Urbanization and Development: Emerging Futures, says that the top 600 cities, with 1/5th of the world’s population, produce 60 per cent of global GDP. However, when unplanned and unmanaged, urbanization can lead to increased inequality, the growth of slums and disastrous impacts on climate change, according to the report.

UN-Habitat Executive Director, Dr Joan Clos, said: “In the twenty years since the Habitat II conference, the world has seen a gathering of its population in urban areas. This has been accompanied by socioeconomic growth in many instances. But the urban landscape is changing and with it, the pressing need for a cohesive and realistic approach to urbanization. “A New Urban Agenda is required to effectively address the challenges and take advantage of the opportunities offered by urbanization,” said Clos.

Such urban expansion is wasteful in terms of land and energy consumption and increases greenhouse gas emissions. The urban centre of gravity— at least for megacities has shifted to the developing regions. In 1995, there were 22 large cities, and 14 megacities globally; by 2015, both categories of cities had doubled, with 22, or 79 per cent of the megacities located in Latin America, Asia and Africa. The fastest growing urban centres are the medium and small cities with less than one million inhabitants, which account for 59 per cent of the world’s urban population.

…Despite growing negative public perception of migrants and refugees, previous experience of refuge crisis shows that migrants can, eventually become valuable contributors to the economic and social development of countries. A major emerging urban issue capable of undermining the long-term sustainability of cities worldwide concerns insecurity and increasing risk. The fear of crime and violence continues to be pervasive in cities. New and pervasive risks affecting cities include terrorism, urban warfare, heightened securitization, and disease and pandemics…

Key Messages
:: When well-managed, urbanization fosters social and economic advancement and improved quality of life for all.
:: The current model of urbanization is unsustainable in many respects. Many cities all over the world are grossly unprepared for the challenges associated with urbanization.
:: A new agenda is required to effectively address these challenges and take advantage of the opportunities offered by urbanization.
:: The new urban agenda should promote cities and human settlements that are environmentally sustainable, resilient, socially inclusive, safe and violence-free, economically productive.

Rockefeller Foundation & Arup Debut a Pioneering Tool that Allows Cities to Better Understand Their Capacity to Address Social, Physical, or Economic Challenges

Posted on 28 May 2016 by davidrcurry

Rockefeller Foundation & Arup Debut a Pioneering Tool that Allows Cities to Better Understand Their Capacity to Address Social, Physical, or Economic Challenges
May 18, 2016
City Resilience Index (CRI) Offers Leaders a Comprehensive Analysis of Capabilities and Vulnerabilities
LONDON—Today, The Rockefeller Foundation and Arup introduced the City Resilience Index (CRI), the first-ever comprehensive tool to help cities assess their resilience, identify their vulnerabilities, and better prepare themselves for the future.

The CRI is a powerful, tested tool created to help policy-makers, urban planners and stakeholders understand and tackle the systemic challenges that increasingly threaten cities. Comprising 52 resilience indicators, the CRI assesses key resilience qualities ¬such as diversity, awareness, and self-regulation, that are critically important to building resilience within a city. The CRI gives cities the ability to assess their preparedness and ability to accommodate current and emerging challenges, through a secure online interface through which cities can enter their data. Each city’s findings can guide urban policymaking, planning, and investment.

“Cities increasingly understand that building resilience is a 21st century imperative, and now for the first time they have a way to comprehensively assess where they are strong, and where they need to improve to be ready for whatever may come their way,” said Judith Rodin, President of The Rockefeller Foundation, which supported Arup to develop the CRI. “The CRI was created over three years and in consultation with a range of cities globally. It is designed with rigor, and in a way that cities everywhere will benefit from using it as a planning and decision-making tool, that can help them realize a resilience dividend from investments in their growth and the well-being of their citizens,” added Rodin.

Designed primarily as a self-assessment, this tool will generate a resilience profile that will reveal a city’s specific strengths and weaknesses, creating a baseline to plan from and measure future progress against.

“Every city is unique, and each faces specific challenges. But, the factors that enable cities to deal with disruption are universal,” said Jo da Silva, Director, Arup. “The CRI captures the breadth of issues that contribute to a city’s resilience. It provides a practical means to measure resilience, and a common language that will enable cities to learn from each other.”

“The City Resilience Index represents an important advancement in assessing resilience, providing a new opportunity for cities, through an analysis of real data, to better assess what their resilience capabilities are,” said Michael Berkowitz, President of 100 Resilient Cities, Pioneered by The Rockefeller Foundation.

For more information on the City Resilience Index, please visit: www.cityresilienceindex.org