Guatemala: Budget tagging turns data into investment for resilience

In 2025, the Government of Guatemala increased its budget for disaster risk reduction (DRR) by 113 percent compared to 2024 — a dramatic rise supported by UNDRR’s work on budget tagging and risk-informed financing. The country’s DRR budget has now more than tripled since 2016, signaling a long-term, proactive commitment to prospective risk management and reducing disaster impacts.

This unprecedented increase is underpinned by evidence produced through the UNDRR budget-tagging system, which has made spending gaps and the fiscal impacts of disasters — such as the severe fires of 2024 — visible for the first time.

Building on Guatemala’s Strategy for Financial Management of Disaster Risk and progress on thematic budget classification systems, the budget-tagging exercise is part of UNDRR’s collaboration with the Executive Secretariat of the National Coordination for Disaster Risk Reduction (SE-CONRED), the Ministry of Finance (MINFIN), the Ministry of Communications, Infrastructure and Housing, and the Secretary of Planning (SEGEPLAN)  aimed at increasing and enhancing financing for DRR investments.

UNDRR facilitated a multistakeholder process that included various government entities, private sector representatives and international cooperation partners to assess the current landscape of DRR financing, establish investment priorities and identify specific actions for financing, with a particular focus on urban resilience, early warning systems, and anticipatory action.

For Guatemala’s national disaster risk authority, these technical and institutional advances point to a deeper shift in how risk is governed. “Prospective risk management must be linked to development processes, planning and budgeting in order to guarantee social protection for all people,” said Dr. Claudinne Ogaldes, Executive Director of CONRED.

How budget tagging works

Budget tagging is a public finance tool that helps governments identify, classify and track investments related to disaster risk reduction, climate adaptation and early warning systems across ministries and sectors.

Using UNDRR’s methodology, Guatemala’s Ministry of Finance (MINFIN), SE-CONRED and SEGEPLAN were able to:

• Improve tracing of the national budget supports prevention, preparedness and climate adaptation and how much is allocated to anticipatory action
• Involve sectoral entities and key stakeholders, particularly from the private sector, to develop a robust analysis of resilience financing  
• Inform budget negotiations with clear, evidence-based justifications for increasing preventive spending.

Strengthening resilience through public finance

This stronger visibility of DRR and climate-related spending has helped policymakers move toward more balanced and sustainable public finance, where preventive measures are treated as core investments rather than optional add-ons. It allowed identification of areas of low investment when it comes to pre-disaster financing, including anticipatory action.

Guatemala’s experience illustrates how budget reforms, risk information and inter-institutional coordination can reinforce one another. As climate- and disaster-related pressures grow, tools like budget tagging help governments steer resources toward the programmes that reduce future losses, safeguard development gains and protect the most at-risk communities.