A third of the world’s population would survive for less than a month with no income
The 2021 World Risk Poll findings reveal that globally, just over one in three people (34%) could cover basic needs for less than a month if they lost their income.
A Resilient World? Understanding vulnerability in a changing climate
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Communities across the world are feeling the impact of both human-made and natural hazards, including severe weather and its link with climate change.
A Resilient World? Understanding vulnerability in a changing climate is the second report about the 2021 World Risk Poll findings.
Revealing how people worldwide feel their country’s infrastructure and government can cope in the face of disasters, the report provides global insights into how prepared and resilient individuals believe their communities, countries, and institutions are in dealing with hazards. The findings can be used by governments, development agencies, businesses, and researchers to help them understand climate risk perception, identify vulnerabilities and take action to make people safer.
Download the PDF report
An introduction to the report
Experts from Resilience Rising and Lloyd's Register Foundation discuss the report's findings.
Key findings
- A quarter (27%) of the world’s population has experienced some type of disaster in the past five years. These are most commonly caused by flooding or heavy rains, experienced by one in 10 people (10%) worldwide.
- Many counties and regions with high disaster experience are also those with low resilience, highlighting areas of vulnerability that must be urgently addressed. On average, countries where people are more likely to have experienced disasters score lower on the World Risk Poll Resilience Index.
- However, there are many different aspects to resilience, and countries and regions that are not resilient in some ways are often resilient in others. For instance, community support is higher in low-income countries, where more than a third of people (35%) say their neighbours care about them ‘a lot’, compared with only one in five (20%) in high-income countries.
- Financial security is one of the greatest areas of vulnerability, with more than a third (34%) of people globally saying they could only cover their basic needs for less than a month if they lost all their income. This includes more than one in 10 (12%) who say they could only do so for less than a week.
The 2021 World Risk Poll Resilience Index
The data visualisation shows the relative resilience scores of every country on the 2021 Index, sub-divided by their scores on its four dimensions - individual, household, community, and societal resilience. The bigger the bar or segment, the greater the resilience score. Countries are ordered from most to least resilient.
Use your cursor to hover over each data segment for more information. We recommend using a desktop or laptop device for the best user experience.
Resilience
Citation
If you wish to use and reference the A Resilient World? Understanding vulnerability in a changing climate report in your own work, please include the following DOI: https://doi.org/10.60743/QTVP-VX27
Example Citation in IEEE Style:
Lloyd's Register Foundation. (2022). World Risk Poll 2021: A Resilient World? Understanding vulnerability in a changing climate. Lloyd's Register Foundation. https://doi.org/10.60743/QTVP-VX27
World Risk Poll Data
Explore the full dataset that underlies this report, including specific data for every country included in the World Risk Poll.
Discover country-level insights