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NAIROBI, 11 October 2013 (IRIN): The World Bank in its 2014 World Development Report (WDR) launched on 6 October 2013 places risk management and resilience building (opbygning af modstandskraft) at the core of its development approach (se link til WDR-rapporten neden for).
“The process of confronting risks, preparing for them, and coping with (tage hånd om) their effects”, WDR notes, offers an indispensable opportunity for growth, prosperity and development.
“The WDR report’s focus on ‘risk as opportunity’ is symptomatic of a “sea change” in the last two or three years, where risk-management investments have switched from being cast as some kind of additional burden one begrudges (begræder), to being integral to durable (varig /holdbar) development and economic growth,” says Tom Mitchell.
He is head of the Climate and Environment Programme at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI)
“When food, fuel and financial crises combined in 2008 to cause sharp declines in economic growth within many developed economies, a tsunami of interest was unleashed in ‘managing risk’ through strengthening resilience, social-protection, shock facilities, food and nutrition security and early-warning systems, among others”, notes he.
Risk as opportunity
Indeed, WDR is explicit that “the risk of inaction may well be the worst option of all,” and proposes that, “the solution is not to reject change in order to avoid risk but to prepare for the opportunities and risks that change entails.”
In agriculture, farmers in developed countries use far more inputs such as fertilizer than those in developing countries, and consequently are more productive.
The report argues that the difference in the use of such inputs can predominantly be explained by differing levels of aversion to (uvilje mod /dårlige erfaringer med) risk.
Many farmers in developing countries are not assured of a ready market or stable financing, and risk crop failure, and are therefore less likely to invest in production-enhancing (fremmende) inputs.
The benefits of disaster preparedness and mitigation (lindring) are well documented:
Mineral supplements (de rigtige mineraler /sporstoffer i maden) aimed at tackling malnutrition could yield at least 15 times greater benefits than the cost of treatment, according to WDR.
While each dollar spent preventing states from failing can result in a saving of four dollar by the international community, according to a 2004 study.
However, from 1980 to 2009, just 3,3 billion (milliarder) dollar was spent on disaster preparedness, with losses from disasters amounting to a stunning 3,5 trillion (billioner) (en billlion = tusind milliarder, red.) between 1980 and 2011, according to the World Bank.
Most of the disasters occurred in low and middle-income countries.
Still, as ODI’s Tom Mitchell cautions, it is not entirely clear how at a policy level, the barriers to creating durable incentives for implementing risk management will be overcome.
Barriers to risk management
Læs videre på
http://www.irinnews.org/report/98927/managing-risk-key-to-sustainable-development
Se meget mere om World Development Report 2014 på
http://econ.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/EXTRESEARCH/EXTWDRS/EXTNWDR2013/0,,contentMDK:23330018~pagePK:8258258~piPK:8258412~theSitePK:8258025,00.html
