Building resilience to anticipate, withstand and recover from disasters.

Key messages:

• Disasters are becoming more more frequent, more intense and more expensive – with the poorest countries in the world bearing the brunt.
• Yet resilience – the ability of communities and economies to anticipate, withstand and recover from disasters – remains underfunded.
• Investing in resilience is essential and we can improve funding for anticipating, withstanding and recovering from disasters in five ways.

Disasters are no longer rare events. They are becoming more frequent, more intense and more expensive – with the poorest countries bearing the brunt.

The Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction (GAR) 2025 highlights that direct disaster costs have grown to approximately $202 billion annually, and that the true costs could be over $2.3 trillion, when cascading and ecosystem costs are taken into account.

In addition, the "big five" disasters – earthquakes, floods, storms, droughts and heatwaves – account for over 95% of direct losses in the past two decades, many of which are preventable.

Yet resilience -- the ability of people, communities and economies to anticipate, withstand and recover from disasters -- remains underfunded. Fewer than 2% of international aid projects cite disaster risk reduction as an objective, and governments often allocate less than 1% of public budgets to it. We continue to spend far more on repairing damage than preventing it.

This model is unsustainable in an era of growing disaster costs. Investing in resilience is not just rational, but essential.

Discover the Five ways to fund disaster resilience for a safer future.