Disaster loss estimates ignore higher cost to poor - World Bank

By Megan Rowling MARRAKESH, Morocco (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Natural disasters have a more devastating impact on the poor than widely thought, forcing some 26 million people into poverty each year and setting back global spending on goods and services by the equivalent of $520 billion annually, the World Bank said on Monday. “Severe climate shocks threaten to roll back decades of progress against poverty,” said World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim in a statement. "Building resilience to disasters not only makes economic sense, it is a moral imperative.” Stephane Hallegatte, lead author of the report, said poor people tend to suffer more from disasters as they often live in places that are hit more often, and lose a bigger share of their income.