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Australia: Risk of a Destroyed Crops Should be Spread Says Agribusiness Consultant

Tue, 01/10/2017
In an interview with ABC News Australia , Jay Horton, an agribusiness consultant with Strategis Partners says only few Australian farmers subscribe to insurance despite the huge risk of growing a crop each year. Mr. Norton also notes that that while some companies in Australia offer multi-peril crop insurance (MPCI), even fewer offer index insurance. This situation contrasts the fact that "insurance reduces the likelihood that the company will have to raise costly external capital at the wrong time." Mr. Horton also urges better forms of risk management in the agricultural sector in Australia...
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In Kenya, Climate change Hits Home as Rivers and Taps Dry Up

Tue, 01/03/2017
Topics: 
General
Country: 
Kenya
As the 2016 short rains came late, Kenya's Meteorological Department had to warn that the shortfall might affect crop production and livestock farming, Kenya's Daily Nation reported. The country and other Southern African nations are currently witnessing two kinds of drought — hydrological and agricultural — both of which are causing disaster as water and food have become scarce, the report added. “We are at the point where people need to adapt. There is need for diversification and shift in the kind of crops to plant, and buying of crop index insurance,” says Department of Meteorology's...
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After a Poor Harvest in Senegal, farmers Find Creative Ways to Carry On

Tue, 01/03/2017
Country: 
Senegal
In an article entitled "After a Poor Harvest in Senegal, farmers Find Creative Ways to Carry On", Oxfam wrote that Senegalese farmers use index insurance to protect their livelihoods from a bad harverst due to poor rainfall. " Farmers can pay the premium with cash, or through a work-for-insurance program designed to help build community infrastructure like rock walls in areas prone to flooding and severe erosion, or small dikes to store water for more gradual use," reads the article. In Senegal, index insurance is provided through the Oxfam and the World Food Programme’s R4 initiative. Click...
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In the Eye of a Cyclone

Tue, 01/03/2017
Topics: 
Weather index
Hybrid
Livestock
Catastrophe weather derivative
Country: 
India
In India's the Hindu, Sucharita Mukherjee, CEO of IFMR Holdings, wrote that risk management through a range of financial products can minimize losses to livelihood. "Catastrophes such as drought, floods and earthquakes not only impact the economy of a nation but also affect the very subsistence of poor and vulnerable communities," reads the Op-ed. The article also cites index insurance practices in Ghana and Mongolia, where, respectively, drought index insurance covers all the growing stages of maize and index-based livestock insurance protects livestock against particularly strong winters...
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World Bank Wants to Further Strengthen the Resilience of Developing and Emerging Countries

Fri, 12/09/2016
In its Topics Online article, Munich Re reported that many risks are not yet sufficiently covered by insurance in developing and emerging countries , resulting in the so-called protection gap, which is the difference between total economic loss and insured loss. Joaquim Levy, Managing Director and World Bank Group CFO, addressed the topic in a speech at this year’s Chief Risk Officer Assembly in Munich . "We are concerned about the fact that in many emerging-market countries, risk-sharing mechanisms such as insurance are not sufficiently developed in view of the significant challenges posed...
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China’s Insurance Industry Must Respond to Climate Risks

Mon, 11/28/2016
Topics: 
Weather index
Catastrophe weather derivative
Country: 
China
On Chinadialogue.net, Zhang Chun, Senior Researcher at Chinadialogue, wrote that the Chinese government is pushing the insurance industry to offer climate risk policies, as climate changes increases the frequency and severity of typhoons. In the agricultural sector, the most relevant type of insurance policy related to climate change in China is called climate index insurance. Instead of determining pay-outs on the basis of damage and loss, policies are based on a weather index that sets compensation levels based on different weather conditions, such as rainfall," Zhang adds. Click here to...
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New Climate Data in Zambia Unlocks Insurance Opportunities

Wed, 11/23/2016
Topics: 
Data
Data providers
Country: 
Zambia
In mid September, the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI) helped launch an innovative new data platform in Lusaka, Zambia that combines satellite rainfall estimates with the country’s existing network of rain gauges. The platform, developed with the Zambia Meteorological Department and through funding from NASA, is the latest to come out of IRI’s Enhancing National Climate Services (ENACTS) initiative which aims to address the persistent problem of data scarcity and lack of access to climate information products in many African countries. The World Bank Group’s...
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What Can Index Insurance Offer to Development?

Wed, 11/16/2016
Topics: 
General
The World Bank has worked with insurers, reinsurers, brokers, banks, agribusinesses and governments to develop index insurance programs through the Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance Program and the Global Index Insurance Facility, managed out of the Finance and Markets Global Practice. As climate change adaptation and disaster risk management have become mainstream in development work, focus on index insurance has increased because uninsured losses keep vulnerable populations in poverty. In a World Bank feature story, two experts reflect on their work on index insurance and its use as a...
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Up in the Sky, Help to Keep Africans From Starving

Mon, 11/14/2016
Country: 
Kenya
In a New York Times' Opinion, Tina Rosenberg wrote that Andrew Mude, a Kenyan economist at the International Livestock Research Institute, is helping headers in Southern Africa insure their liveshock. Dr. Mude was awarded the Norman Borlaug Award for Field Research and Application, which is a major prize in agricultural research, given by the World Food Prize Foundation. "Mude’s program began in one Kenyan county in 2010. Today, about 16,000 families are insured; most are in Kenya, and some are in southern Ethiopia," the op-ed says. To read the article on New York Times, please click here .
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Innovative Insurance for the Adaptation to Climate Change in Ghana

Fri, 11/04/2016
Topics: 
General
Country: 
Ghana
Ghana is celebrating its Farmers’ Day with the theme "Agriculture: A Business Response To Economic Growth". The theme focuses on addressing alternative financial and agricultural solutions that will protect farmers from erratic weather conditions. One of the innovative solutions the country has is the project dubbed “Innovative Insurance Products for the Adaptation to Climate Change” (IIPACC), led by the German Development Co-operation (GIZ), in concert with other relevant stakeholders. "The project, which started in December 2009, sought to facilitate the development and introduction of...
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