Who We Are

The Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) is a multi-donor partnership that supports low and middle-income countries to understand, manage, and reduce their risks from natural hazards and climate change. Established in 2006, GFDRR is uniquely positioned to scale the resilience agenda in these countries by providing funding and expertise for policy advice on improving disaster risk management (DRM) at national and local levels, as it relates to land use, building codes, public health, transport, and education, agriculture, environmental protection, energy, water resources management, poverty reduction, fiscal risk management, and climate change adaptation, among others. This advice, in the context of the World Bank’s policy-based lending, creates both technical capacity and financial incentives that enables formalization of policy changes for improved DRM. The Program Management Unit, located within the World Bank, manages grant resources to carry out GFDRR’s mission. 

GFDRR has strategically focused its grant financing where there is high likelihood of mobilizing larger disaster and climate resilience operations. In addition, GFDRR has been an early investor in cutting-edge research, contributing to global knowledge on risk reduction and resilience as well as innovative approaches and best practice on DRM through flagship publications. And, maximizing off its convening power as a global partnership, GFDRR forges cooperation between developing countries, donors, the private sector, development partners and international finance institutions (IFIs). Over the years, GFDRR has provided more than $750 million in technical assistance, analytics, and capacity building support for more than 140 countries through in-country, regional, and global activities.

Our Vision

A world where communities and countries are more resilient to natural hazards, climate risks and other shocks, and the human and economic costs of disasters are reduced.

Our Mission

GFDRR helps communities and countries reduce risk, prepare for, and recover from disasters by integrating disaster risk management and climate change adaptation into development strategies and programs. Through these actions, GFDRR supports countries to implement the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the Paris Agreement.

Strategic Objectives 

GFDRR has four strategic objectives in accordance with its Theory of Change (See Figure 1):

GFDRR, together with the World Bank Group, works with various partners on disaster risk management, including leading universities, the insurance sector, the risk-modeling industry, civil society organizations, foundations, technical and development agencies of national governments, the United Nations, and other multilateral institutions. Donors contributing to the core of GFDRR’s work are (in alphabetical order) Australia, Austria, Canada, European Union, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States.