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This paper investigates the use of early warning tools as part of Ethiopia's Disaster Risk Management framework. Analyzing, in particular, the Livelihoods, Early Assessment and Protection tool, Livelihood Integrated Assessment and Hotspots Assessments, the paper delineates the scope and objectives of existing early warning tools, their commonalities and limitations. From a disaster risk financing and insurance perspective, the paper investigates possible enhancements in the existing early warning framework and its use that could facilitate greater timeliness of drought response. The paper argues that based on the existing early warning instruments and continued improvements to the early warning systems, it is possible to enable early action during the onset of a drought.

This paper proposes and illustrates a methodology to assess the economic cost of the sovereign risk finance instruments available to the Government of Ethiopia and its development partners for financing the shock-responsive scalability component of the Productive Safety Net Programme. The methodology involves: (i) specifying rules for when additional expenditures would be triggered in each woreda; (ii) specifying alternative risk finance strategies; and (iii) analyzing the costs of each risk financing strategy, including sensitivity and scenario testing of the results. The methodology is applied to a hypothetical set of rules for drought-responsive scalability, and a range of potential risk finance strategies.

Background/Purpose: Little research is currently available on the relationship between weight loss and pulmonary tuberculosis in Taiwan. This study aimed to evaluate whether weight loss is an early clinical feature of pulmonary tuberculosis in Taiwan. Method: This population-based retrospective cohort study was conducted using the Taiwan National Health Insurance Program database. There were 6051 subjects aged 20 to 84 years with newly diagnosed weight loss from 2000 to 2012 as the weight loss group, and 24081 randomly selected subjects without weight loss from the same period as the non-weight loss group. The weight loss and the non-weight loss groups were matched by sex, age, and comorbidities. The incidence of pulmonary tuberculosis at the end of 2013 was evaluated in both groups. A multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression model was used to evaluate the hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for association of pulmonary tuberculosis with weight loss. Results: The incidence of pulmonary tuberculosis was 15.2-fold higher in the weight loss group than in the non-weight loss group during the first 3 months of follow-up (22.8 vs. 1.50 per 1000 person-years, 95% CI 13.7, 16.9). After adjusting for covariables, the subsequent HR of pulmonary tuberculosis was 2.36 for the weight loss group (95 % CI 1.88, 2.97), compared with the non-weight loss group. Conclusion: Although our finding is not novel, it does support the notion that weight loss is significantly associated with increased hazard of pulmonary tuberculosis in Taiwan. The risk was found to be particularly high during the first 3 months of follow-up.

The Pacific island countries (PICs) are some of the most exposed to frequent natural disasters and climate shocks, and their vulnerability is increasing due to mounting effects of climate change as well as demographic and economic forces. Natural disasters hit the poorest hardest and have long-term consequences for human development. Social protection programs and systems have an important role in helping poor and vulnerable populations cope with the impacts of shocks as well as build long-term resilience. This paper discusses the potential role of social protection for disaster and climate risk reduction and management in PICs. It presents evidence and lessons from other regions, providing examples of tools and entry points for the development of climate, and disaster, responsive social protection interventions and context-specific recommendations for PICs.

Many countries have used social protection to achieve broader development goals, particularly on poverty reduction and inclusive growth. A wide range of social protection programs allows countries to tackle specific development constraints at national, community, and household levels; provide support to particular population groups; and enhance growth-promoting opportunities.For instance, public works programs and cash transfers are important and flexible social assistance programs that can be tailored to achieve specific objectives and adjusted to various levels of institutional capacity. They can also be implemented as national and centralized programs or delivered in a more decentralized fashion through community-driven development platforms.

This study examines the role of social protection programming, and programming design and implementation features, that are prominent in fragile and conflict-affected states. The main objective is to build on existing, available information from a sample of fragile and conflict-affected countries and develop operational guidance that addresses policy, design, and implementation issues and offers operational solutions for social protection programming and policy making in different fragile settings. The analysis showcases the universe of social protection objectives that are evident in these countries as well as the programming trends, types, coverage, and expenditure patterns. The paper also examines dimensions specific to fragile and conflict-affected settings in implementing social protection and labor programs, such as social cohesion, the role of community-driven development, and postwar benefits. Finally, the study highlights social protection and labor program delivery in seven different country contexts, and discusses the country-specific programming options chosen to achieve the objectives and overcome capacity and operational constraints.

The report begins with a summary of programs reviewed, a description of the PMT targeting system, and the profile of individuals in the database. It then presents key findings from the review of budgets and the analysis of SW Admin/PMT data on program coverage and distributional equity of program benefits. The report concludes with a discussion of policy implications and recommendations that emerged from the key findings and the process of data gathering and analysis. The Annexes include program descriptions based on the corresponding laws; the estimated benefit levels per individual; government expenditure and budget trends for each program since 2010; and information on social welfare program beneficiaries, by program grouping.

Several East Asian countries, in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, are considering an expansion of their social safety net programs. In many cases, existing delivery mechanisms for social assistance in the region tend to be basic, in line with the small size of programs. In a context of coverage expansion and proliferation of new programs, the risk of creating increasingly complex systems characterized by cross-incentives is high. Lack of coordination, ambiguous criteria for identifying and selecting beneficiaries, low administrative capacity, lack of transparency and limited beneficiary participation pose risks for program effectiveness and can decrease accountability. Good governance can improve program outcomes through effective program coordination, stronger accountability arrangements, provider incentives and greater transparency and participation. This paper proposes an analytical framework to systematically identify governance risks and constraints which, if removed, could improve the outcomes of modern social assistance programs.

The sales of goods and services are exposed to a significant number of risks, many of which are not within the control of the supplier. The highest of these risks and one that can have a catastrophic impact on the viability of a supplier, is the failure of a buyer to pay for the goods or services it has purchased. In today's challenged domestic and global economic climate, recognizing and managing future risks has become a priority for businesses. Losses attributed to non-payment of a trade debt or bankruptcy can and do occur regularly. Default rates vary by industry and country from year-to-year, and no industry or company is immune from trade credit risk. The essential value of trade credit insurance is that it provides not only peace of mind to the supplier, who can be assured that their trade is protected, but also valuable market intelligence on the financial viability of the supplier's customers, and, in the case of buyers in foreign countries, on any trading risks peculiar to those countries. As well as providing an insurance policy that matches the client's patterns of business, trade credit insurers will establish the level of cover that can reasonably be provided to the supplier for trade with each individual buyer, by analyzing the buyer's financial status, profitability, liquidity, size, sector, payment behavior and location.