World Development Report 2014
Risk and opportunity. Managing risk for development
Complete Report 2014
Select Indicators:
General notes
Classification of economies by region and income, FY2014
Table 1 Key indicators of development
Table 2 Key indicators of development for other economies
Table 3 Selected risk indicators
Table 4 Selected indicators related to risk management at the household level
Table 5 Selected indicators related to risk management at the enterprise sector level
Table 6 Selected indicators related to risk management at the financial sector level
Table 7 Selected indicators related to risk management at the macroeconomy level
Table 8 Natural disasters and climate change indicators
Table 9 Global temperature anomalies: Difference relative to 1951–80
Table 10 Aid commitments
Technical notes
INDEX
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Overview: English | Español | Français | عربي | Русский | português | 中文
The past 25 years have witnessed unprecedented
changes around the
world—many of them for the better.
Across the continents, many
countries have embarked on a
path of international integration,
economic reform, technological
modernization, and democratic
participation. Although
challenges and inequalities remain,
economies that had been stagnant for
decades are growing, people whose families
had suffered deprivation for generations are escaping
poverty, and hundreds of millions are enjoying the
benefits of improved living standards and scientific
and cultural sharing across nations. As the world
changes, a host of opportunities arise constantly. With
them, however, appear old and new risks, from the
possibility of job loss and disease to the potential for
social unrest and environmental damage. If ignored,
these risks can turn into crises that reverse hard-won
gains and endanger the social and economic reforms
that produced these gains. The solution is not to reject
change in order to avoid risk but to prepare for
the opportunities and risks that change entails. Managing
risks responsibly and effectively has the potential
to bring about security and a means of progress
for people in developing countries and beyond.
Part I: Fundamentals of risk management
Chapter 1: Risk management can be a powerful instrument for
development
When food prices spiked in 2008,
riots broke out in more than a
dozen countries in Africa and
Asia. As food prices, particularly
bread prices, continued to rise
in the Arab Republic of Egypt,
Rashad Fahti, a factory worker,
struggled to feed his wife and four
children on his monthly salary of
$34.1 A continent away, in Indonesia, the
village of Montei Baru-Baru lost more than
one in five residents—67 people—when it was hit by
a large tsunami that followed an earthquake in 2010.2
Globally, in the aftermath of the 2008–09 global financial
crisis, an estimated 53 million additional
people will remain stuck in extreme poverty by 2015
who otherwise would not have been so poor.3 The
major economic crises and natural disasters that
have occurred in recent years underscore how vulnerable
people are to systemic risks, which cut across
large groups of people—especially in developing
countries.
Chapter 2: Beyond the ideal: Obstacles to risk management and
ways to overcome them
Nearly every year, Mumbai is hit
by heavy rains, and for years, reports
have spelled out precisely
what to do to reduce the risk
of flooding. Twenty years ago, a
master plan (the Brimstowad Report)
provided a list of recommendations
to make the city more resilient
to floods, and nearly $200 million was approved
to implement the plan. But 12 years after
the report was published, in 2005, only a fraction of
this sum had been spent. Then an exceptional monsoon
event hit the city. Almost half the average yearly
rainfall fell in a single day, leaving in its wake more
than 400 deaths and extensive damages to buildings
and infrastructure. After the 2005 devastation, the
government established a fact-finding committee
(the Chitale Committee) to investigate the causes of
the disaster and propose solutions. Perhaps not surprisingly,
their recommendations were very similar
to those of the Brimstowad Report. These measures
were supposed to be implemented by 2015. But as of
2012, only about one-fourth of the 58 projects in the
1993 Brimstowad Report had been completed, while
the tendering process for four major projects had
not even begun.1 The city remains highly vulnerable
to the heavy rains that occur almost every year, despite
well-identified solutions to reduce the risk
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