File photo: A flooded area

The impact of extreme natural disasters is equivalent to a global loss of 520 billion dollars in annual consumption and forces about 26 million people into poverty each year, a new report of the World Bank has shown.

In Nigeria, highlights of the report was made available to newsmen on Monday by the Acting Corporate Communications, World Bank Nigeria, Mr Kabir Muhammed.

The report, titled “Unbreakable: Building the Resilience of the Poor in the Face of Natural Disasters’’ was done in collaboration with the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR).

According to the report, floods and droughts have dire human and economic consequences, with poor people often paying the heaviest price.

It stated that poor people were typically more exposed to natural hazards, losing more as a share of their wealth and are often unable to draw on support from family, friends, financial systems or governments.

It stated that the World Bank was concerned about severe climate shocks threatens to roll back decades of progress against poverty.

The report’s findings underscored the urgency for climate-smart policies that better protect the most vulnerable.

“The report, warns that the combined human and economic impacts of extreme weather on poverty are far more devastating than previously understood.

“In Sub-Saharan Africa, disaster damages are double traditional estimates, averaging 14 billion dollars per annual.

“In all of the 117 countries studied, the effect on well-being, measured in terms of lost consumption, is found to be larger than asset losses,” it showed.(NAN)