Experiencing both recurrent small-scale events as well as devastating large-scale catastrophes, no other region in the world is affected by disasters as is East Asia and the Pacific. In the last decade, Ho Chi Minh City, Jakarta, Manila, and many other cities have been repeatedly hit by floods. In the last five years, Asia has experienced a large share of wide-scale natural catastrophes, including earthquakes in the Tohoku region in 2011, Padang in 2009, and Wenchuan in 2008; typhoons in 2009 in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, the Philippines, and Vietnam; a cyclone in Myanmar in 2008; and large scale floods in 2011 in Cambodia, Thailand, and the Philippines (figure ES.1). The year 2011 was the costliest year on record for natural disasters with cascading effects (Japan) and transboundary consequences (Thailand), adding up to US$380 billion in economic losses, almost doubling the 2005 record of US$262 billion.1 In the first nine months in 2011, East Asia sustained about 80 percent of all disaster losses worldwide.