Source: The World Bank

Over the next three years, the World Bank is proposing the establishment of a $65 million Catastrophe Deferred Draw Down Option (CAT DDO) for Costa Rica. This CAT DDO is part of the World Bank’s Disaster Risk Management scope.

According to the World Bank, the overall development objective of the CAT DDO funding is to enhance the capacity of the government of Costa Rica to implement its disaster risk management program for natural disasters.

The program document proposes US$65 in financing for three years, renewable up to four times (for a total of 15 years).

Since the last implementation status review by the World Bank, which took place in September 2015, the government of Costa Rica has continued making progress on its DRM Program and has received support from the Bank in the implementation of target indicators.

In particular, the Bank has provided support to the National Risk Prevention and

Emergency Management Commission (CNE) in the development of the 2016-2020 National DRM Plan, and the Ministry of Finance (MoF) in the development of a Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance (DRFI) strategy.

Costa Rica has made progress in meeting the policy matrix objectives and has achieved two key milestones, which include agreements on the use of improved methodologies developed by the Ministry of Planning and Economic Policy (MIDEPLAN) to better understand risk considerations in the public investment decision processes.

At least 52 public officials from 41 public entities were trained in the application of these methodologies by the end of 2015.

The World Bank is also supporting Costa Rica with regard to the use of geospatial data to inform DRM decisions as well as a workshop on GeoNode facilitated by the Bank is planned for April 2016. The next supervision is scheduled to take place in April 2016 to assess progress.