The Triple Dividend of Resilience: Realising development goals through the multiple benefits of disaster risk management

This report provides evidence for three types of benefits – or dividends of resilience – that DRM investments can yield: (1) Avoiding losses when disasters strike; (2) Stimulating economic activity thanks to reduced disaster risk; and (3) Development co-benefits, or uses, of a specific DRM investment. While the first dividend is the most common motivation for investing in resilience, the second and third dividend are typically overlooked. Understanding all three dividends of resilience and incorporating them in planning and decision making is critical for strengthening the business case for DRM investments. It will remain that the fundamental principle underpinning DRM measures will be to save lives, reduce losses and promote effective recovery from disasters. However, presenting evidence of additional dividends to policy-makers and investors can provide a narrative reconciling short-term and long-term objectives, thereby improving the acceptability and feasibility of DRM investments. This report argues that any evaluation of the benefits of DRM investments is incomplete without a full account of all three dividends of resilience. In practice, the analysis of this ‘triple dividend’ can be integrated into a variety of different commonly used appraisal tools. Thus, this report suggests a framework for conducting more complete appraisals of DRM investments. Overall, this will help to show that – in addition to preventing human and economic losses during a disaster – DRM investments can actively contribute to wealth, wellbeing, profit, growth and sustainable development.