Updated review by WB - March 2026 - Loss Simulator Tool Review

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Loss Simulator Tool Review

• Step 1 (Data Selection) - error message. Seems to be an issue for total economic damage, not people affected. Seems to be for all countries.

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• Range of Countries
• The tool should for all countries not just those 40 preloaded. This is very quick fix – the manual input file just needs to be updated by extending the data validation of the country name of the (Historial_Loss_Data) tab, to allow the user to enter a new Country name in the Mapping tab or somewhere. I can do it manually myself, but most users won’t know to do this, and we can correct it in 2 mins. The tool then uses the data as expected and the graphs output have the correct country name. The scaling will be missing but a note can be added in the guidance that for any user entered countries scaling must be applied outside tool.
• Update template file, to include a new country entry.

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• Manual input
• On data selection tab for manual input, the plot/tables show all 4 perils (even those not in the spread are included will all zero entries), and the tool tries to fit a distribution to the one with zero entries, but no distribution is fitted. Ideally a blank peril would not be included but at this state, as a minimum the user should be told that this happens, but the peril won’t be included in the analysis.
• As a minimum add a note in step 2 of the guidance.

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• For some countries e.g. Afghanistan, it gets stuck at simulation stage, and needs to be reviewed to confirm why this is happening and how to correct it (it may the case for other countries too) #70

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Errors in scaling data.

• If you manually input data which starts in a year before the pre-loaded scaling factors (2002 onwards) than scaling will not be applied. A note should be added in the guidance by ‘scaling options’ to do this outside of the tool and select no scaling.
• The scaling data for Ethiopia still has multiple entries of the same year and should be correct (2019 repeated). I assume this is an error in the excel file with scaling factors.

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• The text on the user guide tab of loss simulator tool doesn’t make sense. (“Current limitations…”). These issues are related to the Risk Pool Structuring tool instead and should be updated.

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Range of Countries resolved via #65 - created a new version of the emdat country losses file - same perils, all countries. Created a script to convert emdat data table to app format (selected columns, perils names) with a readme and new reference to emdat data date in the app UI.

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user guide page updated to remove limitations that refer to the structuring tool, also change FCI reference to World Bank Disaster Risk Finance team under the Financial Services global department, per request on docs #59

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Step 1 (Data Selection) - error message - fixed, variable mismatch: #67

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Manual input and 4 perils display. A guidance message added (dynamically reads the loaded input file) and chart legend is now responsive showing only perils included in the file.

Not fitting a distribution to missing data is expected behaviour of the tool, no other changes.