ADB awards $450,000 grant for disaster management project

MANILA, Philippines — The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has awarded a $450,000 project grant for the development of a tool for disaster management and urban planning in the Philippines.

The multilateral lender awarded a grant project to Tokyo-based location information and satellite intelligence startup LocationMind Inc. for the development of a poverty impact and vulnerability evaluation (PIVE) tool.

The tool will help policymakers, planners and other stakeholders in disaster management and urban planning in the country.

The grant was awarded as part of the Technology Innovation Challenge managed by the ADB and financed by the High-Level Technology Fund aimed at encouraging the adoption of innovative solutions to address development challenges in the multilateral lender’s developing member countries.

LocationMind will finance around 10 percent of the project budget.

ADB and LocationMind are working with the national and local government units, non-government organizations and academic institutions for the PIVE tool, which is being eyed for implementation in two pilot areas.

The tool will use a wide range of data, including mobile data, satellite imaging data, census data, field survey data, and chat bots, among others, to generate information on poor and vulnerable populations.

Information generated through PIVE is expected to be useful in assessing the vulnerability of individuals and communities to disasters, economic shocks, and health crises and in coming up with interventions.

To be implemented for 15 months, the project involves location visits, stakeholder consultation, data acquisition, and software development.

The tool’s potential for scaling up and for other use cases would be evaluated at the end of the project.

The project aims to help build the resilience of the country’s urban areas, which are vulnerable to climate change effects and continue to face challenges such as informal settlement and poverty.

Around 52 percent of the country’s population are living in cities and urban municipalities, and the ADB expects this number to increase to 62 percent by 2050.

“As a significant driver of the national economy, building the resilience of urban areas is critical to the country’s sustainable development,” the ADB said.