ADVANCING POLICY AND INSTITUTIONAL REFORMS June 2021 FOR RESILIENT INFRASTRUCTURE AND HEALTH EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS IN BHUTAN Toward a Green, Resilient, Multi-Hazard Emergency Preparedness and Recovery in Bhutan AT A GLANCE Country: Bhutan Hazards: Multi-hazard GFDRR Areas of Engagement: Deepening Financial Protection; Deepening Engagements in Resilience to Climate Change; Promoting Resilient Infrastructure. Even amid the COVID-19 crisis, the Royal Government of Bhutan has steadily advanced its efforts towards green, resilient, and inclusive development, including in the areas of infrastructure and multi-hazard emergency preparedness. Photo: Adam Singer. Bhutan is highly vulnerable to natural hazards, including proper planning, design, and workmanship in construction flooding, landslides, and earthquakes, and public health works as major causes of underlying vulnerabilities in the built emergencies linked to epidemic and disease outbreaks with environment in the country. pandemic potential. The risk of potential disasters induced by The World Bank and GFDRR are supporting the Ministry of glacial lake outburst floods is pronounced, as the country is Works and Human Settlement (MOWHS)’s transformational home to 700 glaciers and nearly 2,700 glacial lakes, of which 17 reform agenda on professionalization of the construction are identified as potentially dangerous glacial lakes. industry. These efforts are anchored in the World Bank’s By 2047, Bhutan’s urban population is projected to increase to Bhutan Development Policy Financing (DPF) with Catastrophe 57 percent of the current total population and people, assets, Deferred Drawdown Option (Cat DDO). A Cat DDO is a jobs, and economic potential will increasingly be concentrated contingent line of credit which provides immediate liquidity to in urban areas. The failure to integrate resilience into the built the government in the aftermath of a disaster or emergency. environment as well as in improving preparedness and response The Bank technical team is assisting the MOWHS in capacity to public health and other emergencies expose the formulating the planned Construction Act based on global country to potential catastrophic risks and weaken its ability to best practices and lessons learned. The planned Construction sustain economic growth and promote shared prosperity. Act will establish the Engineering Council of Bhutan which The World Bank and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction will have the mandate to register and license construction and Recovery (GFDRR) are supporting the Royal Government professionals for the first time in the country. Furthermore, of Bhutan’s series of policy and institutional reforms for the Bank team is providing advisory services to the (i) integrating resilience into the built environment and (ii) Construction Development Board (CDB) on the development of strengthening Bhutan’s institutional and technical capacity for a Construction Quality Compliance Mechanism (CQCM). emergency preparedness and response. The planned Construction Act will transform the CDB into Strengthening Policy and Institutional Actions for Green and the Construction Development Authority which will enforce Resilient Infrastructure Development quality infrastructure standards across all public works in the country through the adoption of the CQCM. The 2016 Performance Audit of Disaster Management by the Royal Audit Authority of Bhutan identified inadequate These institutional and regulatory reforms will establish application of engineering design standards and a lack of a legal foundation for green and resilient infrastructure RESULTS IN RESILIENCE SERIES development across the entire country in line with global best practices, contributing to the implementation of the Royal Government of Bhutan’s Economic Contingency Plan 2020. The plan is designed to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19, with a focus on building the technical capacity of Bhutanese construction professionals to bridge the workforce gap Driving and informing 10 revealed by the pandemic; the industry had been heavily reliant on foreign labor. Strengthening Bhutan’s Multi-Hazard Emergency Preparedness and Response Capacity A range of factors, including climate variability, a suboptimal transformational reforms disease surveillance system, porous borders, frequent exchange for a green, resilient, of poultry products, and the fact that Bhutan is a roosting and healthy Bhutan ground for a large number of black-necked cranes and other migratory birds contribute to environmental conditions which are ripe for disease outbreaks such as the avian influenza. Projected temperature rise is likely to increase the geographic range and prevalence of vector-borne diseases, particularly malaria and dengue, and increase the frequency of waterborne diseases. Climate change also has the potential to dry up water sources thereby threatening agricultural production, Taktsang Monastery (1692) and Bhutan mountainous landscape. hydropower generation and tourism activity. Photo: Adli Wahid on Unsplash Accordingly, improving preparedness and response capacities for multi-hazard emergencies, including epidemics, and disease outbreaks with pandemic potential, is a top national priority for the Royal Government of Bhutan. Since the first confirmed COVID-19 case in the country on RESULTS March 6, 2020, the Royal Government of Bhutan has been n The IDA Bhutan DPF with Cat DDO provided at the forefront of successfully minimizing community dedicated contingent financing (approximately US$16 transmission while also strengthening its health emergency million) to the Royal Government of Bhutan, including preparedness and response systems. The World Bank and GFDRR have supported the development of the Bhutan grant financing resources (US$1 million) from the Pandemic Preparedness and Response Plan (BPPRP) and Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF) for standard operating procedures (SOPs). At the onset of the COVID-19 response and relief operations. COVID-19 pandemic, the Ministry of Health (MoH) conducted five simulations and mock drill exercises, in line with the n The World Bank and GFDRR supported the BPPRP and SOPs, to test the effectiveness of both operational formulation of the Bhutan Pandemic Preparedness procedures as well as coordination mechanisms to deal with the and Response Plan (BPPRP) and SOPs which COVID-19 outbreak. Simulations and mock drill exercises were contributed to the country’s exemplary handling led by the MoH and the Department of Disaster Management, of the COVID-19 crisis with only one reported with the participation of all relevant national and local-level stakeholders. The findings of the simulations and mock drill death. The BPPRP and SOPs define clear roles and exercises directly informed the Royal Government of Bhutan’s responsibilities of the different entities of government COVID-19 response and the development of the National and established effective coordination mechanisms Influenza Pandemic Preparedness and Response Plan. and operational procedures. n The Royal Government of Bhutan is advancing its Contact Person and Email transformational reforms toward professionalization Armando Guzman (aguzman3@worldbank.org) of the construction industry and enforcing quality Naho Shibuya (nshibuya@worldbank.org) standards across all infrastructure development in Rianna Mohammed-Roberts (rmohammed@worldbank.org) the country.