The Global Risk Financing Facility (GRiF) was established in October 2018 as a Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MDTF) with over $200 million in pledges from Germany and the United Kingdom, to help countries design and implement financial solutions to manage disasters and climate shocks. GRiF provides finance and technical expertise to develop new pre-arranged financing instruments and help existing ones grow. These financial tools and systems help countries and their people prepare for—and recover more quickly from—the impacts of climate shocks, disasters, and crises.
To maximize the impact of grants, financial solutions are designed as part of World Bank projects. Because every sector, every project, and every country can be negatively affected by climate and disaster shocks, GRiF co-finances projects from across sectors, around the world. Grants address the challenges of financial and technical barriers to pre-arranged financial solutions by financing up-front costs associated with protection instruments and by building systems that can rapidly and efficiently channel resources where they are needed, when they are needed. GRiF grants can also finance the development of global public goods that address key research and analytical gaps in the risk financing field.
The World Bank, Germany, and the United Kingdom form the GRiF Steering Committee (SC). This serves as the primary governing body, providing guidance and strategic advice on GRiF’s program priorities. The GRiF Secretariat leads work planning and reporting. It also coordinates dialogue with donors. The Secretariat is jointly formed by the World Bank’s Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance Program (DRFIP) in the Finance, Competitiveness, and Innovation (FCI) Global Practice and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) in the Climate Change Group (CCG). As a whole, the program contributes to the InsuResilience Global Partnership’s Vision 2025. GRiF also maintains strategic partnerships with other members of the InsuResilience Program Alliance, including the InsuResilience Secretariat and the Centre for Disaster Protection.
GRiF has a core focus on bringing private sector expertise and capital to support climate risk management in vulnerable countries. To this end, GRiF is also engaging with the Insurance Development Forum (IDF). GRiF-financed engagements are crowding in the private sector across its projects. To support the transformation of the wider international system, GRiF disseminates lessons learned and in special circumstances also directly invests in efforts to strengthen collaboration and knowledge sharing with other partners. For example, a grant to the Start Network supported the design of the Start Financing Facility to support risk financing for humanitarian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). GRiF projects also engage with humanitarian actors in early financing, for example, Red Cross and Red Crescent National Societies in Southeast Asia, the World Food Program, and other associated agencies.
