Professor Alain de Janvry was invited to organize a panel at COP21, the United Nations Conference on Climate Change, on options for country responses to weather disasters that are expected to become increasingly frequent and costly with climate change. This was to present work done at ARE by Professor Elisabeth Sadoulet, postdoctoral visitor Alejandro del Valle, graduate students Elizabeth Ramirez and Danamona Andrianarimanana, and himself sponsored by the World Bank, USAID-Basis, and the Gates Foundation-CEGA-ATAI project on climate risks. At issue is how the expected annual 100 billion dollars in aid to be provided to developing countries to help them mitigate and adapt to climate change may be used. An important aspect of adaptation is how to finance and implement relief, reconstruction, and recovery from weather disasters, and how to invest in a more resilient agriculture. Results show that index-based insurance triggered by weather disasters, such as the Fonden and Cadena programs in Mexico, and investments in the development of flood and drought tolerant rice varieties such as done in India, can be effective for this purpose, giving examples to other countries as to what to invest in. You can see the presentations made in the attached documents:
Alain de Janvry, Alejandro del Valle, and Elisabeth Sadoulet, “Insuring Growth: The Impact of Disaster Funds on Economic Recovery.” COP21 presentation del Valle.pdf
Alain de Janvry, “Instruments to protect farmers from exposure to climatic disasters.”