Antalya:The United Nations launched a significant initiative on Thursday at the COP31 climate summit in Antalya, Türkiye, aimed at securing over $3 billion in disaster risk financing to safeguard 75 million individuals and their livelihoods by the year 2030.

According to Anadolu Agency – English, the UN Disaster Risk Financing (DRF) Platform consolidates efforts from six UN agencies to enhance access to necessary funding before climate-related emergencies and natural disasters occur.

The initiative seeks to streamline emergency financing by pooling expertise, sharing data, and aligning resources, with potential partnerships with the private sector and insurance industry. Currently, pre-arranged financing accounts for less than 2% of global humanitarian funding, which hampers agencies' ability to respond proactively to predictable disasters.

Lisa Doughten, director of financing and outreach at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), emphasized that while disasters are becoming more predictable, the financing needed to act preemptively remains slow and fragmented.

Before the initiative's launch, OCHA and UNICEF secured insurance policies for their anticipatory action programs with technical assistance from the World Food Programme (WFP). The WFP reported securing nearly $211 million in pre-arranged financing this year to protect up to 9.6 million individuals across more than 50 countries.

The platform includes the participation of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), OCHA, UNICEF, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), and WFP.