PCRIC Attends the World Bank Spring Meetings

Following the closure of the PCRAFI project, PCRIC continues to value the partnership with the World Bank in the Disaster Risk Finance space. As part of deepening stakeholder engagement along with seeking financial and technical support, the PCRIC Team had a series of bilaterals at the margins of the 2024 World Bank Spring Meetings held in Washington, D.C., from 15th – 20th April.

The PCRIC team met the World Bank Executive Director of Southeast Asia Voting Group, Dr. Wempi Saputra, to brief him on the work PCRIC is undertaking in building resilience in the Pacific, and the areas of potential collaboration with the World Bank. Dr. Saputra updated the team on the key thematic areas that are the Bank’s priority focus such as the IDA21 Replenishment, the expanded Crisis ResponseToolkit, and Country Driven Models and Regional Approaches. In particular, the Crisis Response Toolkit puts climate and disaster risk financing front-and-center for the World Bank, which is fully aligned with PCRIC’s own goals of scaling up access to pre-arranged financing for emergency response following disasters in the Pacific region.

A separate meeting was held with the World Bank Lead of the Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance Program, Dr. Olivier Mahul, on the possible areas PCRIC can collaborate with the World Bank to design and implement disaster risk financing initiatives. PCRIC would like to extend heartfelt thanks to the World Bank for their continued technical assistance to PCRIC and countries across the region in developing their disaster risk finance strategies.

The PCRIC team also met with the PCRIF Council representative from the US Treasury to showcase the Company’s successes over the past 18 months, and discuss current priorities and opportunities for the future growth of PCRIC’s products and services across the region.