World Bank shifts disaster aid from spreading thin to targeting the poorest

The World Bank is proposing a change in how countries deliver emergency aid after disasters: instead of giving small amounts to many people, concentrate more help on those who fall into poverty because of the disaster. In practice, this means some people get nothing while others in the same disaster zone get larger support—betting that it's more effective to pull a smaller number of people fully out of poverty than to give everyone a band-aid.

For decades, disaster aid has been distributed by counting how many people live in a disaster zone and dividing resources equally. This proposes measuring something different: which people actually became poor because of the disaster, and focusing aid there. It's a shift from 'universal coverage' to 'intensity of help where it matters most'—which means some countries would need to accept that not everyone affected gets aid, only those crossing into poverty.