Resource information
In most countries, the private sector
owns the vast majority of the buildings and a considerable
portion of the infrastructure at risk. However, most
investment in disaster risk management is made by the public
sector, with the private sector lagging far behind. The
situation represents missed opportunities for businesses to
capture not only higher levels of the direct benefits of
disaster risk management, but also a broader set of
co-benefits to themselves and society as a whole. These
co-benefits include ways of lowering production costs,
improving the health of workers, and contributing to general
economic stability. Ironically, many of these co-benefits
are more tangible and immediate than ordinary disaster risk
management benefits, which may not appear until a disaster
has struck many years after the investment has been made.
This study analyzes several important facets of private
sector investment in disaster risk management, primarily
from an economic perspective. It is intended as a first step
toward promoting greater investment in disaster risk
management by identifying potential co-benefits, explaining
why they are not always pursued, and suggesting ways to
integrate them into private sector decision-making. The
latter includes government incentives, justified on the
grounds that many private sector investments have extensive
co-benefits, many of which pay dividends to society as a whole.
