The Centre for Disaster Protection is working to improve global disaster preparedness and resilience through proactive risk management and funding strategies.
As climate change intensifies and disasters become more frequent, it’s clear we need to strengthen our disaster preparedness. Effective disaster management involves not just reacting to crises but also taking proactive measures and collaborating to enable early intervention.
The Centre for Disaster Protection is committed to improving global disaster preparedness by supporting governments, NGOs, and communities in establishing proactive, equitable, and effective disaster management practices. The Innovation Platform spoke with Conor Meenan, the Head of Labs at the Centre for Disaster Protection, to learn more about the Centre’s efforts and to explore how we can improve disaster resilience and ensure that communities are better equipped to withstand and recover from future crises.
Can you give an overview of the Centre for Disaster Protection and how you work to enhance disaster preparedness and recovery?
The Centre for Disaster Protection is a technical and policy advisory organisation that works with governments to improve how disasters are planned and paid for. Our focus is on strengthening disaster risk management and risk financing so that countries are better prepared to protect lives, livelihoods, and public finances when shocks occur.
Established in 2017, the Centre combines advisory support, research, training, and global influencing. We work to ensure that disaster risk management is more proactive, evidence-based, and equitable – supporting governments to put systems in place that reduce reliance on ad-hoc crisis response and help ensure no one is left behind.
What are some of the most pressing challenges related to disaster management? How does the Centre prioritise these, and what innovative approaches or strategies are being employed to tackle these issues?
One of the most pressing challenges for governments is that, despite a growing ability to anticipate and plan for future disaster costs, most disaster response is still paid for using funding that is arranged after the fact. This reliance on reactive financing can delay response and undermine longer-term development priorities.
Supporting governments and the international system to make this shift is the core focus of our work at the Centre. This includes helping governments integrate disaster risk into fiscal frameworks and put pre-arranged financing in place. By doing so, disaster risk management becomes central to public financial management, rather than a recurring emergency funding challenge.
How important is unity among government agencies, NGOs, and local communities in enhancing the effectiveness of disaster preparedness strategies? What is the role of the Centre in strengthening these partnerships?
Disasters have far-reaching and interconnected impacts across societies and economies, which means the safety nets required to respond must operate across local, national and international levels. When large disasters happen, and community capacity is exceeded, responsibility and costs shift quickly to governments, and outwards to international systems.
This makes disaster preparedness inherently cross-sectoral. The Centre supports governments and partners to strengthen coordination by clarifying roles, aligning financing arrangements, and ensuring delivery systems are ready to respond when crises occur.
Can you provide examples of where collaboration improved disaster response outcomes?
Disaster risk management depends on efficient coordination during crises, but also on sustained collaboration between institutions during planning and preparation. These longer-term processes are essential to improving the speed and effectiveness of response when crises do occur, yet they typically happen in the background and are often invisible to those working outside them.
One recent example where preparation actually became visible was in Jamaica’s response to Hurricane Melissa, which activated financing arrangements that had been carefully developed over the preceding decade – highlighting how effective response is often the product of long-term planning rather than decisions taken during the crisis itself.
On a similar note, what hinders effective collaboration during a disaster, and how can these challenges be overcome?
When plans and financing are arranged in the heat of a crisis, this can undermine coordination both within governments and between governments and humanitarian and development partners in the international system.
Advance planning and pre-arranging response plans alongside associated financing help overcome these barriers. By setting out responsibilities, financing arrangements, and coordination mechanisms in advance, governments can reduce confusion and, in the time-critical moments following disasters, focus on getting the right support to where it is needed most.
How have we learned from past disaster responses, and how are these lessons influencing current practices and policies within the Centre and beyond?
Experience shows time and again that acting earlier improves how people experience and recover from crises. So, speed matters – but the timely response depends on preparation. Countries that respond most effectively are typically implementing plans that were designed well before disasters occurred.
Another important lesson is that reactive funding is often regressive. When support arrives late, households may be forced to sell assets, take on debt, or cut essential spending. The same applies to government finances when funds intended for development or public services are diverted to disaster response. These lessons are increasingly shaping policies that prioritise pre-arranged financing and risk-informed planning.
Can you explain how advancements in technology and data analytics are helping to improve the ability to predict, respond to, and recover from disasters? How does the Centre engage with these technologies?
Data, modelling and technology are now a cornerstone of modern disaster risk management. Advances over recent decades have significantly expanded governments’ ability to understand a broader range of disaster risks, including how those risks vary across sectors, geographies and time horizons.
Innovation in areas such as the use of satellite data, weather networks and analytical methods has improved the visibility of risk, particularly in contexts where historical data has been limited. Increasing access to forecasted and real-time disaster data, alongside advances in machine learning, is helping to fill long-standing information gaps and strengthen the evidence base for decision-making.
At the Centre for Disaster Protection, our Labs innovation platform will explore how emerging data, methods, and technologies can be applied to persistent challenges in disaster risk financing, in ways that are usable within government systems. Through a collaborative innovation approach, Labs will support governments to keep disaster planning aligned with evolving risks and technological advances, embedding impactful new approaches into budgeting, financing, and planning processes.
With the effects of climate change, how do you see disaster management evolving over the next decade, and how might protection strategies need to adapt to meet those changes?
Current gaps in preparedness already point to where disaster risk management must evolve as climate change continues to alter the risk landscape. As risks become more frequent and less predictable, the value of certainty in planning will only increase.
Over the next decade, a critical shift will be for a much larger share of disaster response costs to be covered through pre-arranged financing, rather than funds diverted or borrowed after disasters occur. Integrating disaster risk management more systematically into government budgets will be essential to protecting development gains and public finances in a changing climate.
Our latest report, The State of Pre-arranged Financing for Disasters 2025, shows that progress is already being made in moving away from purely response-based approaches. The challenge now is to scale and embed what works, so that financial preparedness becomes a routine feature of how governments manage climate and disaster risk.
Please note, this article will also appear in the 25th edition of our quarterly publication.
