Closing the knowledge gap to better manage climate risk

Disasters disproportionately affect poorer countries, in many cases magnifying existing inequalities. Such countries have less access to risk data and tools to make informed decisions to reduce harm – and lower levels of insurance coverage to compensate losses – when disaster strikes. Only if decision-makers and communities in vulnerable countries are empowered with the information, tools and methodologies needed to identify and act on climate risks can this inequality be reduced.

Historically, the disaster risk information used by insurance companies has been developed and used within proprietary models accessible to a restricted group of users. More recently, initiatives such as the Oasis Loss Modelling Framework and the Global Risk Modelling Alliance have encouraged companies to open components of their models, which has benefited the development and humanitarian sectors and the low-income communities they serve.

The World Bank’s Global Facility for Disaster Risk Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) launched the freely accessible Risk Data Library (RDL) in 2023 in response to the UN’s call for investment in digital public goods that can help society tackle big challenges like climate change. This online library houses open-source tools, data and standards that allow users to access, produce and communicate disaster and climate risk knowledge more effectively. The RDL Standard, in turn, ensures that all the data is described in the same way for easy comparison and retrieval.

In 2022 the Swiss Re Foundation teamed up with GFDRR to strengthen the basis for evidence-based disaster risk management worldwide, providing funding as well as access to Swiss Re expertise. With our support, GFDRR created the RDL Standard and granted fellowships to seven young data scientists in climate-vulnerable countries to raise awareness of the RDL and increase the impact of climate risk studies.