The World Bank (WB) is willing to help Da Nang to make a draft well-designed sustainable financial protection strategy for enhancing the city’s resilience to unexpected natural disasters and epidemic crises, hereby helping safeguard livelihoods for locals and sustain the city’s economic growth.

The WB’s stance was confirmed at its webinar held on Thursday with representatives from the Da Nang Department of Finance.

In reality, Da Nang needs a financial protection strategy to better protect its population and budget against the cost imposed by natural hazards and epidemics. Bringing together different financial instruments to fund response and reconstruction, such a strategy should be one component of a broader disaster risk management and climate change plan.

The financing strategy will developed before a disaster strikes, integrated into core public finance systems, and combine risk retention and transfer instruments in the context of an effective legal framework.

Also under the strategy, how to mitigate the dual impacts of epidemics and natural disasters on the local economy will be taken into account.

At the online working session, the WB and Da Nang participants together proposed a number of draft solutions in accordance with the financing strategy.

In particular, there were bustling discussion on offering financial support to local small and medium enterprises and families badly affected by natural catastrophes and epidemics, as well as help them drive their post-hazards recovery.

By MAI QUE – Translated by A.T