Resilience Pays: Financing and Investing for our Future.

The Global Assessment Report (GAR) 2025: Resilience Pays: Financing and Investing for our Future highlights how smarter investment can reset the destructive cycle of disasters, debt, uninsurability and humanitarian need that threatens a climate-changed world. Disaster risk is increasing as more frequent and intense hazard events, unsafe urbanisation, and ineffective development put more people and assets in harm's way. Disasters have profound macroeconomic impacts, with direct losses estimated at $202 billion. When cascading and ecosystem costs are taken into account, escalating disaster costs now surpass $2.3 trillion annually. There is an urgent need to transform how disaster risk is addressed amid a rapidly changing climate. Risk is no longer a peripheral issue but a systemic challenge that affects financial stability, sustainability, and equity. By embedding risk reduction into core policy and investment decisions, it is possible to break the recurring cycle of shocks, losses and debt. With the right choices, resilience can become a foundation for long-term prosperity, enabling societies not only to withstand disasters but to thrive despite them. The launch event was chaired by the Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) for Disaster Risk Reduction with a video message from the United Nations Deputy Secretary General (UN DSG). In the panel discussion, participants learned about the key findings of the GAR 2025 as well as how key actors are smartly investing in resilience. Check out the GAR 2025 Captions: Where possible we provide additional captions to make our videos more accessible to those who use assistive technology, such as screen readers. If you don't require the captions they can be toggled off using the CC button, usually at the bottom of the video display. About UNDRR: The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) has a big ambition: to help decision-makers across the globe better understand and act on risk. At UNDRR, we believe there is no such thing as a natural disaster. A natural hazard, such as a hurricane, earthquake, tsunami, or flood, only becomes a disaster when it impacts a community that is not adequately protected and whose population is vulnerable as a result of poverty, exclusion, or social disadvantage. We envision a world where disasters no longer threaten the well-being of people and the future of the planet. Sustainable development and the 2030 Agenda cannot be achieved without working towards the goal of building resilience.