On July 8 last year, the U.K. Prime Minister, Theresa May, announced her intention to establish the Centre for Global Disaster Protection.
The big idea: capitalize on the City of London’s expertise in financial services in order to help the governments of developing countries become more resilient to natural disasters, using risk transfer, where appropriate, to avoid humanitarian crises and augment disaster aid.
Later that month, Lord Bates, the U.K. Government Minister of State for International Development, shared more color on the Centre’s remit. Addressing the International Insurance Society, he explained:
“It is about investing in the data, research and cutting-edge science to analyze risk and design systems that work well for the poorest people. It is about providing training and sophisticated analytics.
It is about pre-disaster planning, including bringing vulnerable people into the dialogue on how support should flow in an emergency.
It is about providing neutral advice — supporting countries in making decisions about which financial instruments are right for them.
It is about innovation — looking at new ways of working and building new collaborations across the finance and humanitarian communities, to design financial instruments that work for developing countries.”
Lord Bates’ address also highlighted the analytical role RMS played in the U.K. Government’s decision to create the Centre.