Disaster Risk and Poverty in the Dominican Republic

Context and objectives 

The objective of this project was to produce data at the household level using the rapid poverty assessment tool (Survey of Well-being via Instant and Frequent Tracking, SWIFT) to improve the targeting of Disaster Risk Management policies and investments to promote prosperity in the Dominican Republic.  

This project supported the activities of another ACP-EU NDRR project in the Dominican Republic titled “Building Physical and Fiscal Resilience to Ensure Shared Prosperity in the Dominican Republic”. 

Main activities and results

Through this project, the government has been able to upgrade its capacity to build physical and fiscal resilience to disasters. Disaster and climate risk reduction policies were promoted in priority sectors, and a loss assessment tool was developed to assess the economic losses infrastructure sectors suffered from disasters. This will help inform the Ministry of Economy, Planning and Development (Ministerio de Economía, planificación y Desarrollo – MEPyD) on potential needs for recovery and reconstruction in the future. DRM policies and investments were also designed to promote shared prosperity, leading to the development with MEPyD of an econometric model to understand the impact of disasters and climate-related shocks on poverty and other socioeconomic indicators.

Throughout project implementation, many knowledge products were also developed to support the Ministry of Finance in developing technical and institutional capacities for disaster risk financing, including support to set up infrastructure for spatial data to generate actionable data risk information to inform public investments and territorial planning. 

Partnerships and coordination

This project was implemented by the World Bank in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance (MoF), the Ministry of Economy, Planification, and Development (MEPyD) and the National Office of Statistics (Oficina Nacional de Estatistica-ONE).