Allocating Flows According to Vulnerabilities

FERDI has long been involved in designing vulnerability indices that can be used effectively. Since the early 2000s, when it helped introduce an index as a criterion for identifying least developed countries (LDCs), FERDI has published numerous works on the subject. This led to its participation in the development of the Commonwealth Universal Vulnerability Index and to the drafting, with UN-OHRLLS, of the report Possible Development and Uses of Multidimensional Vulnerability Indices.

When a high-level panel was tasked with producing a multidimensional vulnerability index, two FERDI experts, Laurent Wagner and Sosso Feindouno, collaborated with UN-OHRLLS and UNDESA to draft the panel’s report, presented in October 2023 and finalized in early 2024. At the same time, FERDI supported this work with a series of notes (Guillaumont, 2023).

The Multidimensional Vulnerability Index (MVI) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in September 2024. Although imperfect, it can be revised and has already undergone several spontaneous improvements (see Guillaumont, 2024, Policy Brief B270).

For FERDI, to be relevant and usable, an appropriate index must not only cover the three main dimensions of vulnerability (economic, socio-political and environmental), but also be universal (not limited to a specific category of countries) and, above all, structural, so as to capture only vulnerability independent of current policies and to avoid any moral hazard in allocation. In short, the aim is to capture within a single index the exogenous factors of economic instability, socio-political fragility and vulnerability to climate change, while highlighting the specific vulnerability of each country (the conditions that such an index should meet are set out in Guillaumont & Wagner, 2022, Policy Brief B234).

There appears to be greater appetite today for taking into account vulnerability defined in this way for eligibility for concessional financing than for allocation between countries. However, if the principle is recognised for eligibility, it is inconsistent not to apply it to allocation.

In any case, taking vulnerability into account is possible not only for eligibility, as France has done, but also for allocation, as some institutions (such as the EU and the Caribbean Development Bank) have long done, and as it is becoming easier with the development of improved multidimensional vulnerability indices.

To leverage its experience and provide clear, rigorous information on vulnerability, FERDI is developing a revised MVI to be incorporated into an observatory on vulnerability and resilience, to be published annually.

 To read:
>>  Guillaumont P. (2025) Towards an Effective Use of a Multidimensional Vulnerability Index in Development Finance, Ferdi, 96 p.
>> Guillaumont P. (2023) Towards a Multidimensional Vulnerability Index Six supporting notes, FERDI, 38 p.