Philippines Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III has accepted Peru’s offer to act as chairman of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation’s (APEC) Disaster Risk Finance and Insurance strategy (DRFI), Business World reported this morning.
The DRFI is responsible for developing financial protection strategies to improve government’s resilience and quick-response measures to disasters in the Asia-Pacific region.
The Department of Finance (DoF) spokesperson Assistant Secretary Paola A. Alvarez said the position was offered to the Philippines after it successfully advanced APEC’s disaster risk finance agenda in 2015.
The Philippines has reportedly been pushing for increased microfinance and microinsurance penetration for climate change vulnerable countries – with the aim to boost low-income household’s resilience to natural disasters.
Alvarez said Japan had offered to co-chair the group along with the Philippines; “After the Philippines took over the chairmanship of the DRFI technical working group (TWG), Japan, Chile and Peru said they plan to participate in the TWG and that Japan is willing to co-chair it, given its extensive knowledge on this issue.”
The chairmanship had originally been offered to Vietnam, who is set to act as host for the annual 2017 APEC meeting, but Vietnam turned down the offer citing a lack of experience and expertise, Alvarez added.
The Disaster Risk Finance and Insurance group is made up of a consortium of nations and international organisations, including, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, the United States, Indonesia, Mexico and Chile, along with the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the APEC Business Advisory Council.
The Geneva-based non-profit Sustainable Infrastructure Foundation offered the group the expertise of its International Infrastructure Support System – which is designed to assist government agencies in project preparation.
Last year, the Philippines held the chairmanship of the Vulnerable Twenty (V20) Ministerial Dialogue, where it advocated for additional financing for an effective global response to climate change.
The V20 is a Group of Ministers of Finance for the Climate Vulnerable Forum – a collaboration between economies who see themselves as systemically vulnerable to climate change.
The DRFI is an offshoot of the 2015 10-year Cebu Action Plan to promote financial integration, fiscal transparency, policy reform, financial resiliency, and infrastructure development & financing.
The World Bank was the key instigator for the establishment of the DRFI, after it conducted a study on options for regional disaster risk financing mechanisms.
While schemes for microinsurance and microfinance penetration throughout Asia are often still in fledgling stages, and have often not yet grown to large-scale market opportunities for reinsurers, international organisations have schemes in the works set to open up reinsurance market space and protect high-risk households from the worst ravages of climate change.
