The "Prepared and Resilient in the Americas" program will improve disaster preparedness, response, and recovery in Latin America and the Caribbean.
On March 29, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) launched "Prepared and Resilient in the Americas," a regional program designed to increase the resilience of Latin America and the Caribbean to disaster risk, which negatively impacts the region's economies and quality of life each year.
The program will expand and strengthen the Bank's work in this increasingly critical area.
Prepared and Resilient in the Americas seeks to strengthen regional collaboration to increase resilience, improve preparedness, ensure a swift and effective response, and strengthen financial protection against disasters.
As part of this proactive effort, the IDB will allocate US$10 million in non-reimbursable financing to the program between 2025 and 2030. This is in addition to the financing and technical cooperation the IDB provides to the countries.
During the launch event held today in a plenary session with the Governors of the IDB and IDB Invest at the 2025 Annual Meetings, President Ilan Goldfajn and Chilean Finance Minister Mario Marcel emphasized the importance of this program to more effectively address the natural disasters affecting the region.
Chile is a co-sponsor of this initiative and has been instrumental in its implementation and promotion. To date, 37 member countries have signed the declaration of adherence to this program.
“Strengthening resilience to natural disasters is no longer optional; it's a necessity. The Prepared and Resilient in the Americas initiative seeks to strengthen disaster preparedness in our region by providing countries with better data and tools, promoting a coordinated regional response, and closing the financing gap by supporting resilience bonds and other risk transfer instruments,” said President Goldfajn.
Finance Minister Mario Marcel said, "Following the devastating forest fires and floods that recently affected Chile and many countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, we came to the IDB with the conviction that disaster preparedness and resilience must be a priority. Today we celebrate the launch of Prepared and Resilient in the Americas and we are proud to participate and actively contribute to this vital initiative for the region, thus ensuring a program that comprehensively addresses natural disaster management. We must remember that these emergencies have a preventive component, but also an action component. In Chile, we are well aware of this; in recent years, we have had to deal with fires, floods, and earthquakes before. This is a phenomenon that is repeated in neighboring countries, therefore, we must be able to act in a coordinated manner, with a collaborative and containment focus."
Latin America and the Caribbean is the second most disaster-prone region in the world.
In 2024, it faced 74 major disasters that affected nearly seven million people and caused an estimated US$10 billion in economic damage.
Prepared and Resilient in the Americas is supported by 16 strategic partners from the private sector, non-governmental organizations, and international organizations.
This alliance is key to driving technological innovations, fostering collaboration with the public sector in the early provision of goods and services, and co-designing financial solutions that optimize costs and improve emergency preparedness and response.
The program is composed of three key pillars. The first focuses on providing countries with advanced tools to better assess risks and their associated costs.
In addition, it will promote technological innovation to improve the accuracy of early warning systems and adaptive social protection, focusing on providing support to the groups most exposed to and affected by natural phenomena.
Under the second pillar, a collaborative network will be established between countries, subregional networks, international organizations, and the private sector to ensure access to and coordination of necessary services and goods, enabling a rapid and effective response when a disaster strikes and time is limited.
The third pillar consists of promoting innovative financial instruments to strengthen countries' resilience and economic capacity to cope with disasters.
This includes supporting the issuance of resilience bonds, catastrophe bonds, swaps , and exploring regional mechanisms to reduce costs and increase insurance product coverage in the agricultural and infrastructure sectors.
