One of the major objectives of climate risk management (CRM) is to strengthen the resilience and protect the lives and livelihoods of poor and vulnerable people against the impacts of disasters by reducing the protection gap. One way of doing this is by providing affordable disaster risk financing solutions. The current financial protection gap against climate and disaster risks is 98.1 % across climate-vulnerable low and lower-middle-income countries. Towards this, various global and regional initiatives are taking a principled approach that puts people’s needs at the center of Climate and Disaster Risk Finance and Insurance (CDRFI). These initiatives emphasize consensus-building and experience-driven principles that can guide climate and disaster risk financing in the broader context of disaster risk management. 

However, over the last decade, not only global and regional initiatives, but also various intergovernmental organizations, national governments, NGOs, MDBs, and other stakeholders are moving towards a principled approach to govern climate risks. At the heart of these approaches lie three basic elements: 

1. Moving toward a proactive (and more cost-effective) approach to financial planning that protects the lives and livelihoods of the poor and vulnerable from the impacts of disasters; 

2. Complementing this with other elements of a comprehensive disaster risk management strategy, ranging from investments in risk reduction to improved preparedness and resilient recovery and reconstruction. 

3. Understanding how effective climate and disaster risk finance and insurance solutions can be applied in various other sectors (i.e., gender, banking) that directly or indirectly affect the outcomes of climate risk management practices at local, regional,l and global levels. 

   
   

This publication gives an overview of various principal documents to inform ongoing discussions under the UNFCCC Technical Expert Group on Comprehensive Risk Management.