ZT Issue # 7 - September 2014 A V PkPublication no.: 91634 A Practitioner's Perspective on Disaster Risk Management in Ltno ei ath Caribbean The Power of a Multi-Sectoral Approach to Climate and Municipal Risk in Bolivia These recurrent climate impacts impede faod security and underscore why "The Municipal Risk Indicator (MRI) allowed us to establish decisian makers choase to prioritize and assess agricultural risk in Bolivia. a new approach to municipal-level planning. We believe that this approach will impact our work through more In assessing sectoral damages and losses caused by these events, Mr Tito effective disaster risk management. The MRI provides and his team of government officials made several hypotheses aimed at re- indicators for different levels and types of risk across all 339 ducing future impacts. They theorized that moving high-yielding crops such municipalities that can be applied to mitigate impacts to the as wheat and rice from risk-prone areas, or replacing sensitive crops with agricultural sector in high-risk areas." more durable alternatives, would minimize the negative effects to the ag- ricultural sector following a flood or drought . 2 However, could they be cer- -Mr. Lucio Tito - Agricultural Engineer & Manager, Agricultural Risk and tai that solutions such as these would be viable in reducing risk across all Climate Change Unit, Ministry of Rural Development and Lands of Bolivia's 339 municipalities? Would alternative approaches be more ef- fective? How could they target their investments to maximize results in in- Challenge creasing the food security and improving the livelihoods of citizens in Bolivia? Given limited financial resources, extensive reconstruction needs, and high Intervention vulnerability to frequent hazard events, how does a country identify and pri- oritize investments to most effectively reduce disaster risk? Mr. Lucia, an To determine the most effective solutions to reduce risk across different sec- agricultural engineer and manager at Ministry of Rural Development and tors in Bolivia, six national ministries teamed up with the World Bank's disas- Lands, battles this national and municipal development dilemma on a dai- ter risk management (DRM) specialists to develop a national DRM program ly basis. Tackling this question is especially important in a diverse country for the country. This involved collecting and sharing required risk informa- such as Bolivia. Extreme climate events, such as El Niio or La Nifa, cause tion, by strengthening and federating geospatial information systems in the severe flooding and drought that impair crop yields and livelihoods, and agriculture, public works, health, planning, environment and water sectors, spur outbreaks in diseases such as malaria, dengue, and cholera. In 2005, and establishing a virtual data-sharing platform called GeoSINAGER.1 This 2006, and 2007, climate events affected approximately 45 of Bolivia's 339 platform facilitates the flow of geospatial, hazard and socio-economic data municipalities. During 2006 and 2007 alone, El NiFio caused damages among agencies at both the national and municipal levels. Now, at the no- of US$379.9 million (3.28% of GDP for 2006), and between 2007 and tional level, the Ministry of Health can connect with the Ministry of Planning 2008, La Nifa's damages were valued at US$757 million (5.72% of GDP to quickly access spatial information to combine and further analyze their ex- for 2007). sting data. GeoSINAGER also enables practitioners to create digitized geo- graphic maps by layering geospatial data with socio-economic information Both phenomena historically inflicted substantial damage on the agricul- in order to visualize municipalities that are most vulnerable to the four main ture, health and transportation sectors, but the greatest impacts occurred in hazards (flood, drought, frost, forest fires). The team also collaborated to de- the agriculture sector. Since 2002, agricultural production dropped consid- velop a new methodology, the Municipality Risk Indicator (MRI), to improve erably, negatively affecting over 50% of the population (see graph below). investment decisions for public infrastructure and land planning to reduce sectoral vulnerabilities and improve resilience to natural hazards. Percentage change of national GDP and agricultural production (2002 - 2013)' 10- Municipality Risk Indicator (MRI) A The MRI is a database and visualization tool' that enables government officials to examine hesectoral relationships at both the national and municipal level. The MRI methodology assigns 4a high, medium or low risk levels to key sectors in each municipality under various climate scenar- 2- ios and hazards. In doing so, the MRI permits odecision-makers to quickly grasp and under- 0-- stand levels of risk and identify strategic infra- structures (hospitals, schools, roads, airports) -2-202 2042005 Mi Oil 2008 2009 ME 2011 2012 2013 that are exposed to such hazard scenarios. With this snapshot, authorities can identify and target GDP Growth -Agricultural Sector Growth I(%) vulnerable municipalities and specific sectors to Booklet explaining the MR Impact of climate disaster (Nifio/Niif) support the prioritization of key investments to re- methodology (in Spanish duce disaster risk. only) www.worldfbank.org/icrdrm/insights 0e in sig h ft inDl M A Practitioner's Perspective on Disaster Risk Management in Latin America &te Caribbean To develop this methodology,' the team compiled extensive sectoral data obtained from the six ministries and agencies and combined these with de- mographic, hazard, socio-eco- nomic and institutional infor- motion from across the country, 6% such as population density, in- font mortality rates, and num- _t ber of homes lacking access to electricity, to name a few. This information was then used to develop an indicator, or rank- ing, for each municipality that represents its level of vulnera- bility, and further, provides a system to monitor the effica- cy of specific risk reduction in- MR[ visualization of flood risk providing municipal level of risk (Red=Highi, Yellow=Medium, Green=Low, Grey=Very Low). Click vestments. Following this, the map to enter MRI portal.' team created base maps using GeoSINAGER that featured several climate scenarios, including four main Through the use of the MRI in decision-making, local, municipal and nation- hazards (noted above), El Nirio and La Nifia, and climate change predic- al agencies are now better equipped to target investments for more effective tions for the year 2050,6 and applied these against the municipal indicators risk management solutions across key sectors. The MRI tool, along with oth- to indicate predicted risk for each scenario (see image above of flood risk er strategic initiatives and processes such as strengthening national agencieS7 MRI visualization). and developing collaborative information-sharing platforms, has helped to form a comprehensive disaster risk management strategy to significantly im- prove technical capacity at the national level. Mr. Tito and his colleagues in MRI and the Agriculture Sector the Ministry of Rural Development and Lands have been able to utilize these In applying the MRI methodology to the agriculture sector, tagged as a pri- developments to address the risks to agricultural production and food security ority sector for risk reduction investments, Mr. Tito and officials in the nation- by better targeting their financial resources for maximum impact in the future. al Agricultural Risk and Climate Change Unit partnered with the World Bank and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery to aggregate ex- One of the challenges that remains for the country involves finding efficient tensive information on 16 crops across all municipalities in Bolivia. They de- ways to transfer the technical capacity gained at the national level to agen- termined baseline yields for each crop and then conducted impact analy- cies and organizations at the municipal level. This will provide direct support ses for various climatic events and hazard scenarios. Through this research, to municipal authorities and practitioners where the planning and implemen- they developed an index for food security in the agriculture sector. tation actually occurs. Once municipal governments receive further training to improve their capacity to use risk information and MRI analytics, they can fur- ther devise development plans to reduce the multi-sectoral risk their respec- Outcome tive territories are facing. As with the agriculture sector targeted investments informed by the MRI analyses can lead to significant improvements in other Contrary to previous hypotheses, this thorough analysis of the agricultur- keyareastoobtainthegreatestbenefitforthewellbeing of residents in Bolivia. al sector revealed that the crops with the greatest economic value were not located in high-risk areas. Rather, through the use of the MRI database and its capabilities to conduct inter-sectoral analysis, national authorities Endnotes from the Vice Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Public Works, Housing and I An6lisis de la Gesti6n del Riesgo de Desastre en Bolivia, GFDRR/MPD 2014. Services, and Ministry of Rural Development and Lands determined that in- 2 The events at 2005, 2006, and 2007 affected an average of 45 municipalities, appro- terruptions in the transportation network and connectivity to markets were ximately 14% of the country, and a total at 34 municipalities were affected repeatedly driving the agricultural losses. Given these impacts of climate events, such during the same three consecutive years. as flooding caused by El Nifo and La Niia, the Vice Minister of Transport 3 http://geosnager.defensacivil.gob.bo! affirmed and agreed to prioritize more resilient road infrastructure and im- 4 http://54.218.65.182/gfdrr/rm.html proved transport lines, especially for high-productive agricultural areas. 5 http://54.218.65.182/gfdrr/metodologioirma.pdf This discovery provided objective information that galvanized the govern- 6 Adaptaci6n al Cambio Clim6tico - Evaluaci6n deVulnerabilidad yAsp[ectos Econ6mi- ment to confidently invest in a US$220 million national road infrastructure cos. Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia, World Bank, May 2011. project to secure the country's agricultural security by improving the resil- 7 SENAMHI (Servicio Nacional de Meteorologia e Hidrologia) and SerGeoTecMin (Ser- ience of the national transportation system. vici t Geol6gico T6cnico de Minas), SHN (Servicin Hidrol6gico Naval) Contacts Oscar Anil Ishizawa Escudero - DRM Specialist, Disaster Risk Management and Urban Development, Latin America and the Caribbean - oishizwa@worldbank.org) Marco Rodriguez C. - Sr. DRM Specialist, Disaster Risk Management and Urban Development, Latin America and the Caribbean - mrodriguezc@worldbank.orgw Mr. Lucio Tito -Agrcultural Engineer & Manager, Agricultural Risk and Climate Change Unit, Ministry of Ra D d anddevlopng ollbortiv inormtio-shrin p atforms,%hAsCpdt ~MDRYT 4Fm)JGF D RR MndilwC www.worldbank.org/icrdrm/insig his