Across Southeast Asia, public infrastructure anchors economic stability and social well-being. Schools, hospitals, transport networks, and utilities underpin everyday life and keep communities connected. They are also ground zero for communities to recoup when disaster strikes. Governments across ASEAN depend on public assets to keep economies and services running for their citizens. The value of these public assets to community life is amplified when disasters strike, serving as central nodes on a country’s journey of recovery. Yet even as climate risks intensify, most public assets across the region remain uninsured or underinsured.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) estimates that ASEAN member states will need to invest US$3.1 trillion in infrastructure between 2023 and 2030. This is over $200 billion annually, just to sustain economic growth, reduce poverty, and respond to climate change. This does not account for the rising cost associated with disasters and extreme weather events that increasingly impact infrastructure.
Yet up to 92% of public and social infrastructure in the ASEAN region has traditionally been financed by governments. When floods, storms or earthquakes damage public infrastructure, governments are left to absorb these losses through their budgets and borrowing, and when services are not restored quickly, households pay the price through lost income or lower welfare.
Most of this infrastructure remains uninsured or underinsured. Fragmented national schemes and annual, ad-hoc insurance purchases struggle to provide predictable, affordable protection at scale, resulting in growing fiscal exposure and risk of disruption to the essential services people rely on most.
A Shared Risk Demands a Regional Solution
The SEADRIF Sovereign Asset and Fiscal Empowerment (SEADRIF-SAFE) is a new regional initiative designed to change how ASEAN countries protect public infrastructure from disasters. Developed under the Southeast Asia Disaster Risk Insurance Facility (SEADRIF), SAFE aims to embed multi-year disaster insurance directly into development finance, whether through bilateral projects or those supported by multilateral development banks.
Instead of governments buying insurance year-by-year, premiums will be built into infrastructure investment projects, then pooled in the SEADRIF Insurance Company, a Singapore licenses insurer owned by ASEAN+3 members through the SEADRIF Trust, to access reinsurance on better terms. This regional approach reflects a growing consensus that disaster risk cannot be managed in isolation.
As Philippines Finance Secretary Ralph G. Recto noted: “Disasters are not just national problems—they are regional challenges that demand global solutions. Through SEADRIF-SAFE, which the Philippines champions, we are taking a proactive and united step to protect what truly matters: our people and the public assets they rely on.”
Turning Development Finance into Disaster Protection
Under SAFE, governments and development partners agree at the project design stage to include multi-year disaster insurance within infrastructure financing.
SEADRIF pools risks across countries and sectors, diversifying exposure and placing coverage efficiently with local markets and in global reinsurance markets. When disasters occur, governments receive rapid, rules-based payouts, enabling faster repairs, and helping safeguard the continuity of essential services.
SAFE builds on SEADRIF’s proven experience with sovereign disaster insurance and takes it a step further by embedding multi-year insurance into the financing of public infrastructure projects, rather than relying on stand-alone annual policies.
It complements existing disaster risk finance tools, such as contingent credit lines and emergency financing, and focuses on long-term insurance of public assets, reducing reliance on post-disaster debt and ad-hoc temporary instruments.
What This Delivers: For Governments, Partners, and Communities
For governments, SAFE will offer predictable, multi-year, and more affordable protection for public infrastructure, helping preserve fiscal space while ensuring essential services can continue when disasters strike. Regional pooling can deliver meaningful cost premium savings estimated to exceed 20% compared to stand-alone insurance placements. It can also provide more stable pricing and higher-quality coverage through centralized technical expertise.
For multilateral development banks and development partners, SAFE provides a scalable mechanism to embed risk financing into operations, protects development impact and complements existing financial instruments. It also creates a platform to crowd in private capital from global reinsurance markets, while deliberately giving local insurers space through co-insurance and other structured risk-sharing arrangements.
SAFE presents an opportunity to harness faster recovery, fewer service disruptions, and greater confidence that the systems governments and people depend on will be there when they are needed most.
Building a Resilient Future for Public Infrastructure
SAFE is advancing along a clear pathway toward implementation. The initiative, which is championed as part of Japan and the Philippines’ co- chairing of ASEAN+3 in 2026, has been welcomed under the ASEAN+3 finance track, with a defined roadmap toward launch with Ministerial endorsement in 2027. A dedicated SAFE Task Force—with independent co-chairs and participation from multilateral development banks and bilateral partners—is now advancing the institutional, legal, technical, and financial design. SEADRIF welcomes development partners and governments to engage through the SAFE Task Force and their project pipelines to embed coverage and identify potential pilots.
Ultimately, the value of SAFE will be felt in daily life. It shows up in hospitals that can reopen quickly after floods, schools that resume classes without long delays, and roads and utilities restored before disruptions become crises.
By protecting the shared systems people depend on most, SAFE will help communities recover with stability, governments plan with greater certainty, and public services endure even as climate and disaster risks intensify.