Disasters are increasing worldwide with more devastating effects than ever before. The absolute number of disasters around the world has almost doubled since the 1980s, but the average number of natural disasters in Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has almost tripled over the same period. In MENA the interplay of natural disasters, rapid urbanization, water scarcity, and climate change has emerged as a serious challenge for policy and planning. It has reconfigured risk landscapes by making the region's natural resource base fragile and extremely susceptible to a variety of internal and external factors. The 2011 global assessment report on disaster risk reduction finds that although global flood mortality risk has been decreasing since 2000, it is increasing in MENA. World Bank support to MENA countries encompasses capacity building on disaster risk management (DRM) at national and community levels, catalyzing an inter-ministerial dialogue within countries, and creating an enabling environment to support the development of national DRM strategies.