Los Angeles, CA – November 25, 2018 – Today, in advance of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP24) to be held from 2 to 14 December 2018 in Katowice, Poland, the Global Bank Group announces the launch of the Global Bank Disaster Risk Reduction and Reconstruction Fund – An Umbrella Trust Fund (the GB-DRRRF). Its purpose is mainstreaming climate change into development to help achieve the Sendai Framework targets by 2030 - a decade-long plan to help make the world safer from disasters caused by natural hazards — and to support the implementation of the Global Climate Agreement in Paris, and prevent disasters undermining progress on the Sustainable Development Goals.

“We all know climate change is a global problem – and for that, it requires a global solution,” says Ron Nechemia, President of the Global Bank Group. He added, “As a reflection of the Global Bank Charter, the GB-DRRRF was designed from its inception to be a “True Global Program.”  This Program addresses the challenges posed by natural and human-caused hazards, climate change, the degradation of natural resources and population growth to the whole family of nations.  By its very nature, it includes all States, both developed and developing countries, and addresses the diverse needs and challenges faced by countries in special situations.  In particular, African countries, least developed countries, landlocked developing countries and small island developing States, as well as the specific challenges facing middle-income countries.”

GB-DRRRF TO ADDRESS CLIMATE CHANGE, DISASTER REDUCTION, AND RECOVERY
The Global Bank Disaster Risk Reduction and Reconstruction Fund – An Umbrella Trust Fund comes on the eve of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference (COP24), where the Parties are expected to finalize the rules for implementation of the Paris Agreement on climate change under the Paris Agreement Work Programme (PAWP).  All at a time when the world’s ambition to deal with the growing threat of climate change is at its highest.

The central aim of the Global Bank Disaster Risk Reduction and Reconstruction Fund – An Umbrella Trust Fund is to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Additionally, the GB-DRRRF aims to increase the ability of countries to deal with impacts of climate change and making finance flows consistent with a low greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and climate-resilient pathway.  To reach these ambitious goals, the GB-DRRRF supports mobilization and provision of financial resources, a new technology framework and enhanced capacity-building, thus supporting action by developing countries and the most vulnerable countries, in line with their national objectives. The Global Bank Disaster Risk Reduction and Reconstruction Fund – An Umbrella Trust Fund also provides for an enhanced transparency framework for action and support.

“A Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5ºC ¹ published by the Nobel-Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and approved by governments, confirms that human influence on the climate system is clear and growing, with impacts observed across all continents and oceans," says Ron Nechemia, President of Global Bank Group. He added, “Also, the Synthesis Report finds that the more human activities disrupt the climate, the greater the risks of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems, and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system."

The Global Bank Disaster Risk Reduction and Reconstruction Fund – An Umbrella Trust Fund focuses on what happens the day after "mega-disasters," catastrophic threats to individual cities, to countries, to a world region, and the entire globe. While meeting life-saving and life-sustaining needs, the GB-DRRRF and the Global Bank² carries out research that helps prepare for, respond to, and recover from large-scale disasters — including hurricanes, earthquakes, nuclear accidents, pandemic flu, and terrorist attacks. The GB-DRRRF’s approach combines research, policy work, education, and high-level advocacy to ensure that the best thinking — and best practices — become part of disaster preparedness and recovery work. The rapid and flexible support offered by the GB-DRRRF makes it a central pillar of the Global Bank Group agencies’ humanitarian response architecture.

The Global Bank Disaster Risk Reduction and Reconstruction Fund – An Umbrella Trust Fund works to understand and improve the nation’s capacity to prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters. It focuses on the readiness of governmental and non-governmental systems; the complexities of population recovery; the power of community engagement; and the risks of human vulnerability, with a particular focus on the elderly, disabled and children.

“Millions of lives have been shattered every year by disasters such as drought, storms, major earthquakes, landslides, heat waves, floods, and hurricanes. These natural disasters disrupt daily life and, in the worst cases, unleash dramatic levels of devastation,” says Ron Nechemia, and he added, “With the GB-DRRRF, the Global Bank Group has entered a new era of global cooperation on one of the most complex issues ever to confront humanity.”

These initiatives allow the Global Bank Disaster Risk Reduction and Reconstruction Fund – An Umbrella Trust Fund to collaborate with a broad array of partners. This allows for enhanced action to address ambitious adaptation and mitigation finance, including coordinated support for country-driven long-term strategies for low greenhouse gas emissions and respective technologies for climate-resilient development, as well as client countries’ efforts for Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) implementation and enabling environments, the development of risk-pooling and the enhancement of harmonised reporting of Global Bank Group’ climate finance. The GB-DRRRF implements the majority of its activities in countries through the Global Bank, in partnership with national, regional, subregional, and other international agencies.

Examples of such thematic cross-cutting initiatives include:

• GB-DRRRF Innovation Lab for Climate Finance - GB-DRRRF Innovation Lab for Climate Finance (The Lab): The Lab addresses barriers to finance in adaptation, sustainable agriculture, energy efficiency, renewable energy, disaster recovery and disaster risk insurance with innovative financial instruments that have the potential for scaling up financing for a low-carbon, a climate-resilient economy with the emphasis on market instruments.
• The Global Bank Atlantic Reconstruction Fund - The Global Bank Atlantic Reconstruction Fund (the “GBARF”) is a regional Standby Recovery Financing Facility (“SRFF” or the “Facility”) dedicated to the Atlantic hurricane region which includes the North Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico. It will provide for rapid and predictable disaster recovery operations, as a complement to the existing international coordination and financing instruments of various multilateral and bilateral agencies for this purpose.

Initial Resource Mobilization
The Global Bank Disaster Risk Reduction and Reconstruction Fund – An Umbrella Trust Fund is funded through voluntary contributions. While the GB-DRRRF is expecting to receive the bulk of its funding from governments, efforts are also likely to focus on reaching out to non-traditional contributors, including from the private sector and philanthropic foundations. The GB-DRRRF will launch its initial resource mobilization in January 2019, and expecting to rapidly gather pledges worth USD 1 billion, which is not an official figure for the size of the GB-DRRRF itself.

The need and desire to ensure successful resource mobilization led to the creation of a High-Level Advisory Group on Climate Financing (AGF) by the President of the Global Bank Group, Ron Nechemia in February 2018.

Support Us
“At Global Bank Group we believe that good partnerships can build great opportunities, exciting initiatives, and ground-breaking experiences. Our partnership with the public-private sector delivers against one of the most compelling visions, creating risk-resilient societies and a world free of poverty,” says President of the Global Bank Group Ron Nechemia

The vulnerability to all countries to climate change is rapidly rising, and the need for resources has never been acuter. Please support humanitarian emergencies and work toward longer-term recovery and sustainable development efforts by donating to the Global Bank Disaster Risk Reduction and Reconstruction Fund – An Umbrella Trust Fund and allow us to help people in need quickly and effectively. To protect and support those affected by climate change and carry out life-saving work, we rely almost entirely on government, corporation and individual donations to the GB-DRRRF. Donations to the GB-DRRRF directly support the lifesaving work being carried out by the Global Bank Disaster Risk Reduction and Reconstruction Fund on the ground in the world’s most vulnerable regions.