Assessment and diagnostics: Risk

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored that development must be risk-informed to be sustainable. The initial public health shock and the cascading socio-economic effects triggered by the pandemic are undermining and reversing previous development gains. As shocks, disasters and crises are becoming more frequent, intense, and interconnected, a thorough understanding of a country’s risk landscape is an indispensable element of sustainable development efforts.

In the context of INFFs, risk assessments aim to bring a risk-informed perspective to financing policy decision-making, with a view to help policy makers better understand, manage and address risks to a country’s ability to sustainably finance, and ultimately achieve, national development objectives.

This module presents approaches and tools to assess major risks to sustainable financing, with a view to identify policy actions that can prevent and reduce risk and improve the system’s resilience, including by assessing their feasibility and cost-effectiveness. It should pave the way for a risk-informed and risk-sensitive approach to financing for sustainable development in the context of INFF design and implementation.