Nepal faces mounting fiscal exposure from climate disasters: CDRI official
Summary
Nepal is facing rising fiscal pressure from repeated floods, landslides and earthquakes that are damaging energy, transport and other infrastructure. A CDRI official says the country needs stronger disaster financing tools, including reserves, contingent credit and insurance, to reduce long-term budget strain.
Key Points
- Disasters are becoming a major recurring drain on Nepal’s public finances, with floods, landslides and earthquakes causing large annual and catastrophic losses.
- CDRI’s Ramesh Subramaniam says resilient infrastructure should be treated as a fiscal risk-management priority, not just an engineering issue.
- Nepal’s current disaster reserves are small compared with its estimated exposure, so the country needs layered financing that combines reserves, contingent credit and risk transfer instruments.
- The article points to Nepal’s Cat DDO, provincial insurance schemes and forecast-based financing as examples that could help other climate-vulnerable countries.
