PH financial resilience falters amid climate risks

Most Filipinos struggle to safeguard their finances when natural disasters strike—a troubling reality for a country like the Philippines, which faces severe climate risks, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

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“Many people living in Cambodia and the Philippines have limited financial resilience, suggesting that they may be unprepared to face further climate-related risks that would bring significant unexpected financial expenses,” the OECD said in a policy paper titled “Sustainable finance and financial literacy in Cambodia and the Philippines,” published on Monday, June 30.

The OECD drew this conclusion about the state of financial resilience in the Philippines and Cambodia from a 2023 survey it conducted in these two Southeast Asian countries, which it noted are among the most exposed to the impacts of climate change in the region.

The OECD survey results showed that over three-fifths of adults in the Philippines were being affected by climate-related natural hazards that had financial consequences for their households in the two years preceding the survey.