The Center for Disaster Protection works to improve global disaster preparedness and resilience through proactive risk management and financial strategies.
As climate change intensifies and disasters become more common, it is clear that we need to strengthen our disaster preparedness. Effective disaster management involves not only responding to crises, but also being proactive and working together to enable early intervention.
The Center for Disaster Protection works to improve global disaster preparedness by helping governments, NGOs, and communities establish proactive, fair, and effective disaster management practices. Innovation Platform spoke with Conor Meenan, Laboratory Director at the Center for Disaster Protection, to learn more about the Center’s work and explore ways to improve resilience to disasters and ensure communities are better prepared to withstand and recover from future crises.
Please give us an overview of the Disaster Prevention Center and your efforts for disaster preparedness and recovery.
The Center for Disaster Protection is a technical and policy advisory body that works with governments to improve disaster planning and payment methods. We focus on strengthening disaster risk management and risk financing to strengthen countries’ preparedness to protect lives, livelihoods and finances when shocks occur.
Founded in 2017, the center combines advisory support, research, training and global impact. We are working to ensure disaster risk management is more proactive, evidence-based and fair, helping governments reduce reliance on ad hoc crisis responses and put systems in place to help ensure no one is left behind.
What are the most pressing challenges related to disaster management? How does the Center prioritize these issues? And what innovative approaches and strategies are being adopted to address these issues?
One of the most pressing challenges for governments is that, despite increased ability to predict and plan for future disaster costs, most disaster responses are still financed with funds arranged after the fact. This reliance on reactive financing can delay response and undermine long-term development priorities.
Supporting governments and the international system to make this change a reality is at the core of our Center’s work. This includes helping governments integrate disaster risk into fiscal frameworks and introduce pre-planned financing. In doing so, disaster risk management becomes central to public financial management rather than a recurring emergency funding challenge.
How important is solidarity between government agencies, NGOs, and local communities in increasing the effectiveness of disaster preparedness strategies? What is the Center’s role in strengthening these partnerships?
Disasters have far-reaching and interconnected effects across societies and economies, which means that the safety nets needed to respond need to work across local, national and international levels. When large-scale disasters occur and exceed the response capacity of local communities, responsibility and costs quickly shift to governments and even the international system.
Disaster preparedness is therefore inherently interdisciplinary. The Center helps governments and partners strengthen collaboration by clarifying roles, coordinating funding arrangements, and ensuring readiness to respond in the event of a crisis.
Can you give an example of how collaboration improved disaster response outcomes?
Disaster risk management depends not only on efficient coordination during a crisis, but also on sustained cooperation between agencies during planning and preparation. These long-term processes are essential to improving response speed and effectiveness during a crisis, but they typically occur in the background and are often invisible to those working on the outside.
One recent example where preparedness came to light in action was Jamaica’s response to Hurricane Melissa. This triggered funding arrangements that had been carefully crafted over the past decade. This highlighted how effective responses are often the product of long-term planning rather than decisions made during the crisis itself.
Similarly, what hinders effective collaboration during disasters? How can these challenges be overcome?
Planning and financing arrangements during a crisis can undermine coordination not only within governments but also between governments and humanitarian and development partners in the international system.
Advance planning and pre-coordination of response plans, along with associated funding, can help overcome these barriers. By predefining responsibilities, funding arrangements, and coordination mechanisms, governments can reduce confusion and focus on getting the right support where it is needed most in the critical moments after a disaster.
How have we learned from past disaster responses, and how are these lessons impacting current practices and policies within and outside the Center?
Experience has shown time and time again that acting early improves how people experience and recover from a crisis. So while speed is important, a timely response depends on preparation. Countries that respond most effectively typically implement plans developed well before a disaster occurs.
Another important lesson is that reactive financing is often regressive. Delays in the arrival of aid could force households to sell assets, take on debt or cut essential spending. The same applies to government finances, where funds for development and public services are diverted to disaster response. These lessons are increasingly shaping policies that prioritize pre-arranged financing and risk-aware planning.
Can you explain how advances in technology and data analytics are helping improve our ability to predict, respond to, and recover from disasters? How is the Center addressing these technologies?
Data, modeling and technology are now the foundation of modern disaster risk management. Advances in recent decades have greatly expanded governments’ ability to understand broader disaster risks, including how risks vary by sector, region, and time horizon.
Innovations in areas such as the use of satellite data, weather networks, and analytical methods have improved risk visibility, especially in situations where historical data is limited. In parallel with advances in machine learning, increased access to predicted and real-time disaster data is filling long-standing information gaps and strengthening the evidence base for decision-making.
The Center for Disaster Protection explores how the Lab’s innovation platform can apply new data, methodologies, and technologies to the persistent challenges of disaster risk finance in ways that can be used within government systems. Through a collaborative innovation approach, Labs helps governments keep disaster planning in line with evolving risks and technological advancements, incorporating impactful new approaches into budgeting, financing, and planning processes.
How do you think disaster management will evolve over the next decade due to the effects of climate change, and how do you think conservation strategies will need to adapt to respond to those changes?
Gaps in current preparedness already indicate that disaster risk management must evolve as climate change continues to transform the risk landscape. As risks become more frequent and less predictable, the value of certainty in planning will only increase.
A key change over the next decade will be that a much larger portion of disaster response costs will be covered by pre-arranged financing, rather than funds diverted or borrowed after a disaster occurs. Integrating disaster risk management more systematically into government budgets will be essential to protecting development interests and finances in a changing climate.
Our latest report, The State of Disaster Preparedness Financing in 2025, shows that the move away from a purely response-based approach is already underway. 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 risks.
This article will also be published in the quarterly magazine issue 25.
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