This public policy document, jointly prepared by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), analyzes the relationship between inequality and disaster risk in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). The document argues that disasters do not occur in a vacuum, but overlap with persistent structures of inequality that condition who is more exposed, who is more vulnerable, and who has greater capacity to recover. The argument becomes particularly relevant if one considers that, between 2000 and 2025, the region recorded 1,741 disasters, of which 87% were related to climate-related events, with cumulative losses exceeding $300 billion.

The analysis identifies three dimensions that interact to shape the so-called “inequality–disaster–inequality cycle”: unequal exposure, driven by unplanned urbanization processes that push the poorest populations toward risk zones; unequal vulnerability, in which lower-income households suffer disproportionately higher losses and have fewer protective mechanisms; and the resilience gap, which determines whether losses are temporary or lead to permanent deteriorations in well-being.

The document also warns about the imbalance in investment in risk management: less than 1% of Official Development Assistance allocated to LAC is explicitly directed at risk reduction, on top of a bias in national budgets in favor of emergency response over prevention and forward-looking risk reduction. This reactive approach perpetuates a cycle of disaster–response–repetition that erodes the fiscal space of States and deepens existing inequalities.

To break this cycle, the document proposes an agenda aligned with the findings of the 2025 Regional Human Development Report, structured around three axes — instruments, institutions, and infrastructure — that integrate disaster risk reduction as a central component of human development.