When a catastrophe hits, one of the first things that’s needed is resources, specifically money. The same thing goes for pandemics.
The World Bank is trying to get money to places that need it in times of crisis, and has introduced something called “pandemic bonds” to help poorer countries fight outbreaks more quickly.
They’re modeled after catastrophe bonds, which insurance companies introduced after Hurricane Andrew damaged Florida in the early '90s.
Governments eventually got involved in this kind of thing, and now the World Bank. Shawn Donnan has written about this. He's the world trade editor for The Financial Times.
