Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what discussions she has had with (a) the UK financial services sector and (b) multilateral financial institutions on the (i) development and (ii) issue of catastrophe bonds as a tool for mitigating catastrophic risk for developing countries.

DFID has had strong engagement with the UK financial services sector on the disaster risk financing agenda, for example through the Insurance Development Forum (IDF). The Centre for Global Disaster Protection, recently set up by DFID, has run an Innovation Lab in partnership with the UK financial services sector, which explored the use of innovative risk transfer instruments, including catastrophe bonds, to support building back disaster affected infrastructure to be more resilient.

DFID works closely in partnership with the World Bank on the disaster risk financing agenda – and the World Bank has worked with catastrophe bonds in Mexico, and underpinned the new Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility with a bond. Catastrophe bonds serve as one of a suite of financial tools the World Bank offers to support developing countries mitigate catastrophic risk from disasters.