The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) Malaysia has urged Malaysia to treat flood resilience as a financial and capital markets issue rather than solely an environmental or infrastructure concern, as climate-related risks continue to intensify across the country.
The accounting body said the Securities Commission Malaysia’s River Flooding Adaptation & Resilience (RIFAR) Challenge signals a broader shift towards integrating climate resilience into investment and economic planning frameworks.
Head of ICAEW Malaysia Shenola Gonzales said climate risk increasingly translates into economic disruption, infrastructure stress and financing challenges, requiring solutions that are practical, interdisciplinary and investable.
“The RIFAR Challenge is about how ideas become solutions. Climate risk shows up as economic disruption, infrastructure stress and financing challenges, so the solutions must be interdisciplinary, practical and investable,” she said.
She added that the challenge reflects the need for leadership capable of turning climate risks into scalable solutions through systems thinking and sound judgement.
ICAEW Malaysia noted that while flood damage is often visible through disrupted transport, damaged homes and halted businesses, the wider economic impact includes weakened productivity, disrupted supply chains, higher insurance exposure and falling asset values in flood-prone areas.
The organisation said Malaysia’s challenge is no longer simply about responding to floods, but whether the country is prepared to finance long-term resilience sustainably and at scale.
Under the RIFAR Challenge, the Sprint track focuses on public communication and storytelling on river resilience while the Marathon track requires participants to develop flood mitigation proposals for Taman Sri Muda in Shah Alam, integrating engineering concepts with capital market financing strategies.
