Lessons for COVID: How natural disasters reshape supply chains

Aug 19, 2021

A container is being unloaded from a cargo ship while it is docked.

Natural disasters can cause long-term shifts in imports. Image: REUTERS/Nir Elias

Caroline Freund

Senior Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics

Aaditya Mattoo

Research Manager, Trade and Integration, World Bank

Alen Mulabdic

Analyst, Macroeconomics, Trade & Investment Global Practice, , World Bank

Michele Ruta

Lead Economist, , World Bank

Our Impact

The Big Picture

Explore and monitor how Supply Chains is affecting economies, industries and global issues

A hand holding a looking glass by a lake

Crowdsource Innovation

Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale

Stay up to date:

Supply Chains

Have you read?

a chart showing imports from japan in cars and electronics

Figure 1 Country share of imports from Japan in auto and electronics (average). Image: 6-digit HS 1988/92 import data from United Nations Comtrade.

a diagram showing Global network of intermediate trade, 2018

Figure 2 Global network of intermediate trade, 2018. Image: Taglioni and Mattoo (2020)

Discover

How has the World Economic Forum helped initiate a more effective response to natural disasters and humanitarian crises?

Figure 3 1,189 products could shift to other developing countries. Image: 6-digit HS 1988/92 import data from United Nations Comtrade and GDP per capita (constant 2010 US$) are from the World Bank World Development Indicators (WDI).

Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.