Disaster Recovery Planning: Explanatory Note and Case Study

Explanatory Note

1.   Introduction

A post-disaster needs assessment (PDNA) aims to assess the full extent of the impact of a disaster on a country and—based on its findings—produce an actionable and sustainable recovery strategy to mobilize financial and technical resources. If necessary, a PDNA will also request additional external cooperation and assistance for implementation, depending on the financial, technical, and institutional capacities of a country.¹

A PDNA should be designed to estimate the value of financial requirements to achieve recovery and reconstruction after a disaster. Guidelines have been developed, expanded, and refined using the initial methodology developed by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean for the assessment of the value of destroyed physical assets and losses in the production of goods and services, and the formulation of the first PDNA Handbook.² This process required quantitative and evidence-based information. However, the procedure to systematically and quantitatively estimate the required financial needs to achieve recovery and reconstruction has lagged. One significant development was a 2015 World Bank proposal for using a recovery framework to guide post-disaster activities for recovery and reconstruction.³

Quantitative procedures for the estimation of the value of financial requirements only have been described in the guidance notes of the World Bank´s Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery. These notes served to estimate recovery and reconstruction needs as of 2010.⁴ This note draws from the facility’s guidance notes and from field experience acquired during many post-disaster assessments to provide comprehensive and quantitative procedures for the estimation of recovery and reconstruction financial requirements following disasters of any type, using as inputs the values of damage and losses arising from the PDNA.

2.   Definition of Recovery and Reconstruction

The United Nations General Assembly adopted the definition of recovery as The restoring or improving of livelihoods and health, as well as economic, physical, social, cultural and environmental assets, systems and activities, of a disaster-affected community or society, aligning with the principles of sustainable development and ‘build back better,’ to avoid or reduce future disaster risk.⁵

Further, the General Assembly adopted the definition of reconstruction as the medium- and long-term rebuilding and sustainable restoration of resilient critical infrastructures, services, housing, facilities and livelihoods required for the full functioning of a community or a society affected by a disaster, aligning with the principles of sustainable development and ‘build back better,’ to avoid or reduce future disaster risk (footnote