Disaster risks across Southeast Asia are becoming more frequent, complex, and costly, placing growing pressure on public finances. Between 2015 and 2020, disasters cost ASEAN countries more than $11 billion. In response, countries across the region are looking to strengthen their financial preparedness, increasingly shifting their focus towards approaches that can deliver faster, more predictable support following climate and disaster shocks.
Against this backdrop, the Southeast Asia Disaster Risk Insurance Facility (SEADRIF), together with the Indonesia Ministry of Finance (IMOF) convened its first Knowledge Exchange Day on 9 March 2026 in Bali, Indonesia. Bringing together over 70 representatives from governments, regional organizations, development partners, and the domestic insurance community, the exchange created a space for countries to learn directly from one another’s experience and align on practical approaches to strengthening financial preparedness for disasters.
In his opening remarks, Mr. Encep Sudarwan, Director of Policy Formulation of State Asset at IMOF, pointed to the growing momentum among ASEAN countries to scale and implement mechanisms that strengthen financial resilience.
He said: “This Knowledge Exchange Day takes place at a pivotal moment. Across ASEAN+3, disaster and climate risk are becoming more frequent, more complex and increasingly consequential for public financing. In this evolving context, the key question is no longer why disaster risk finance matters. Rather, the more pressing question is how disaster risk financing can be effectively integrated and operationalized with national fiscal systems.”
“We hope today’s discussions will generate insights that participants can take back to their respective policy processes and that these will inform future collaborations under SEADRIF and the ASEAN+3 framework,” he added.
Discussions during spotlight sessions focused on how countries are translating these insights into practice through key areas such as public asset protection, risk layering, and the use of government-reported human impact data. Designed to move beyond theory, the sessions surfaced practical lessons from implementation and identified opportunities for replication and regional collaboration.
Ms. Suska, Director of Welfare and Economic Equity Strategy at the Directorate General of Economic and Fiscal Strategy at IMOF, shared the country’s progress in building a comprehensive disaster risk financing framework, including the Pooling Fund Bencana, the country’s newly established natural disaster reserve fund, its public asset insurance program, and ongoing work to strengthen catastrophe risk modeling and parametric insurance.
Mr. Somxay Keovandy, Deputy Director General at the Lao PDR Ministry of Finance Department of State-Owned Enterprises Reform and Insurance, shared the country’s experience partnering with SEADRIF to design and implement #PEOPLE, a parametric insurance product with a world-first reported impact trigger, under which payouts are disbursed based on the number of people affected by disaster events as reported by the government’s own disaster management service.
As a next step, Mr. Somxay noted that the Lao PDR government is now working closely with partners to accelerate the implementation of payout funds on the ground following a disaster event.
Drawing on lessons from Lao PDR’s experience, Mr. Christian De Guzman, Treasury Operations Officer at the Philippines Bureau of the Treasury, presented how the Philippines is advancing its national disaster risk finance strategy. He noted that the Philippine government was exploring the use of government-reported data in its proposed parametric risk transfer program for 2026, which aims to provide a pre-arranged financial buffer that can deliver rapid funding in the aftermath of catastrophic events.
He said: “Disaster risk financing initiatives are a long process, driven by political will, good data, and strong partnerships across countries that experience similar challenges. We want to move forward as a community, share experiences with different nations, and, in the future, turn this shared vulnerability into a shared strength within the Southeast Asia region”.
SEADRIF representatives shared updates on the facility’s evolving portfolio, including efforts to expand country coverage across ASEAN and develop regional product offerings. This includes work to strengthen agricultural risk finance to support food security and build agriculture market infrastructure, as well as embedding disaster insurance into development-financed public infrastructure to better protect essential services.
Reflecting on SEADRIF’s role, Mr. Benedikt Signer, CEO of the SEADRIF Insurance Company, said: “To really scale disaster risk financing in ASEAN, we must move beyond thinking about individual projects, pilots, and proof-of-concept, and start embedding finance and insurance directly into governments’ core systems, into public financial management and fiscal planning. We need to move towards de-risking development as a default, rather than something added on afterwards.”
The event also marked the signing of a Memorandum of Intent between SEADRIF Insurance Company and the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Centre), a partnership that will focus on strengthening disaster impact reporting and exploring regional insurance solutions for faster humanitarian response.
In his closing remarks, Dr. Yoshihiro Kawai, Chairman of the SEADRIF Insurance Company, noted how the country experiences highlighted the importance of disaster risk finance as a key tool for recovery and resilience, underscoring that it must be treated not only as a fiscal policy issue, but as a core part of national strategy.
He said: “SEADRIF endeavors to be a central focal point of risk management and insurance, and work alongside governments to reinforce resilience. We look forward to partnering with countries and working together to achieve their national strategies.”
Following the exchange, Dr. Emelia Fantoza Binti Saraih, Deputy Undersecretary (International) at Malaysia’s Ministry of Finance, noted that sessions had given her insight into the efficacy and rapid disbursement of a parametric insurance model and Indonesia’s practice of insuring public buildings, which could be considered in Malaysia.
She said: “This platform connects us as ASEAN countries. We are no longer siloed, because disasters do not consider borders. When we sit together and share experiences, we can learn more about how to cope with disasters and how to go about financing.”
The discussions in Bali underscored a shared understanding that no country has to face these challenges alone. By drawing on each other’s experience, ASEAN+3 nations are strengthening collaboration and advancing practical ways to implement disaster risk finance, building a more coordinated and resilient system grounded in what is already working in practice.
SEADRIF will continue working closely with governments and partners across the region to scale these efforts, helping translate collaboration and knowledge exchange into real outcomes for those most affected.