World Bank's Repair scheme provides $16.9 million to Mozambique after Cyclone Jude

By Henry Gale

April 14 - (The Insurer) - Nearly 150,000 people in Mozambique affected by Cyclone Jude will be supported by a payout from a World Bank disaster risk transfer scheme, the programme's implementer African Risk Capacity (ARC) has said.

The $16.87 million payment from the Regional Emergency Preparedness and Inclusive Recovery (Repair) program will be used by Mozambique's government to provide food, shelter and medical supplies to cyclone victims in the Nampula and Zambezia provinces.

The World Bank announced the Repair programme in July last year and said in March that it had made its first payout to Comoros following December's Cyclone Chido. The climate risk fund includes several financial instruments, such as reserves, contingent financing and parametric insurance, to support eastern and southern African countries after disasters.

In a LinkedIn post, ARC, which implements the World Bank programme, said the payout was disbursed within two business days of a request from Mozambique's government.

This suggests that the payment was not purely triggered by the characteristics of the cyclone or its impact, as a parametric insurance claim would be, but came from an instrument the government could choose to draw upon, such as a contingent credit line. However, the details of the combination of disaster risk instruments and the mechanism that supported the payout from Repair have not been disclosed.

Repair is backed by a $926 million envelope from the International Development Association, the International Bank for Reconstruction and the Development and Global Shield Financing Facility. It covers Comoros, Madagascar and Mozambique in its first phase and plans to attract $795 million in private capital by 2031 to expand to 12 countries.