Social Protection and Labor – Disaster Risk Management Toolkit

This toolkit was conceived for the use of two groups of World Bank Group (WBG) staff and consultants. The primary target users consist of social protection and labor (SPL) specialists who help WBG client countries to strengthen the natural-disaster responsiveness of SPL systems, or more broadly, to mainstream DRM in the country’s SPL policies, programs, and service deliveries. The second most important target users are those who belong to either disaster risk management (DRM) or disaster risk financing (DRF) communities, those work closely with and support the first group, or those are interested in using SPL programs and services as a platform to support their objectives. It is our hope that the knowledge and insights contained in this toolkit will increase the effectiveness of the two target users in assisting their country clients. SPL specialists in the WBG are typically trained in economics, political science, sociology, and other social sciences. In contrast, DRM specialists tend to be engineers, urban planners, and environmental scientists. Many in the DRF community have degrees in financial economics and business management. It is not among our objectives to convert SPL specialists into DRM or DRF specialists, or vice-versa. However, our objective includes facilitating communication among the three groups of specialists. When people from different professional specializations come to work together, even a simple word like ‘risk’ is interpreted differently. Engineers are likely to think of physical damage and destruction, where death and injury are the primary human impact to be minimized. SPL specialists, on the other hand, would think of loss of job and income, declining consumption (particularly food), and its long-term impact on human capital. This is what Robert Chambers called ‘Professional Biases’ in his classic book, Rural Development: Putting the Last First. However, to face cross-sectoral challenges, understanding the perspectives of partners from different disciplines is important.