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One of the world’s largest reinsurance firms, Swiss Re, recently announced that two million African smallholder farmers are now protected against drought, floods and other natural perils, thanks to the efforts of the World Bank and Swiss Re Corporate Solutions. Back in 2012, Michel Lies, Swiss Re’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) made a commitment that by 2017 it would protect 1.4 million African smallholder farmers from weather and catastrophe risks, through increased insurance protection. And now the Switzerland-based reinsurer has revealed that not only has the amount of farmers covered...
Agriculture in Rwanda accounts for one-third of Rwanda’s GDP; constitutes the main economic activity for rural households (especially women) and remains the main source of income. Today, the agricultural population is estimated to be a little less than 80% of the total population. The sector meets 90% of the national food needs and generates more than 70% of the country’s export revenues. (Source: Rwanda Development Board). Much of the agricultural land is rain-fed, with little or no irrigation available. This is exacerbated by the fact that more than 68% of Rwandan land is on hillsides with...
GIIF, a member of the World Bank Group, signed two grant agreements, with a combined value of $3.9 million, with the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture to expand index-based insurance to small-scale farmers in Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania. Index-based weather insurance can protect against the adverse effects of climate change and help to strengthen food security in rural communities.

ITV Sophia

Sophia Belay, Manager – R4 Rural Resilience Initiative, talks about increasing awareness of index insurance among farmers
Niyitegeka Veneranda, 55 ans, est agricultrice au Rwanda. Elle a sept enfants et cinq petits-enfants. Alors qu’elle possède moins d’un hectare de terrain avec son mari, elle a réussi a construire une petite maison, à nourrir sa famille et à envoyer se trois plus jeunes enfants à l’école. Grâce à une assurance agricole, elle a obtenu un prêt d’une banque locale qui lui a permis d’accroître sa production de riz, et elle prévoit de demander un autre prêt l’année prochaine pour étendre encore sa surface cultivable.
Fifty-five year old Niyitegeka Veneranda lives in rural Rwanda. She and her husband are parents to seven children and grandparents to five. They farm less than a hectare of their own land, yet she has been able to build a small house, feed her family, and send her last three children to school. She expanded her rice production recently with a loan from a local bank made possible through agricultural insurance, and plans to expand her acreage with another loan next year.
As Rwandan farmers face increasingly erratic rainfall, an innovative program launched today will use automated weather stations to offer 20,000 farmers in the Southern and Western provinces of Rwanda low-cost insurance to protect their loans for high-yielding seeds, fertilizers, and other farm inputs.
Having enough food in East Africa depends largely on the productivity of smallholder farms, which in turn depends on farmers’ ability to invest in their farms. Weather insurance can encourage farmers to make these critical investments by improving their access to credit. The Global Index Insurance Facility (GIIF)—an IFC/IBRD collaboration housed under IFC’s Access to Finance’s Global Retail/Microfinance Cluster—is an innovative program that is expanding access to insurance against weather risks and natural disasters to farmers, livestock herders, and others, particularly in Africa and the...
Fifty-five year old Niyitegeka Veneranda lives in rural Rwanda. She and her husband are parents to seven children and grandparents to five. They farm less than a hectare of their own land, yet she has been able to build a small house, feed her family, and send her last three children to school. She expanded her rice production recently with a loan from a local bank made possible through agricultural insurance, and plans to expand her acreage with another loan next year.
Agriculture in Rwanda accounts for one-third of Rwanda’s GDP; constitutes the main economic activity for rural households (especially women) and remains the main source of income. Today, the agricultural population is estimated to be a little less than 80% of the total population. The sector meets 90% of the national food needs and generates more than 70% of the country’s export revenues. (Source: Rwanda Development Board). Much of the agricultural land is rainfed, with little or no irrigation available. This is exacerbated by the fact that more than 68% of Rwandan land is on hillsides with a slope greater than 16%. The majority of agricultural activities are by non-commercialized smallholder farmers, with minimal investment leading to reduced yields and continued food insecurity. Commercial banks and microfinance institutions are using weather index insurance as a tool to reduce their portfolio at risk when lending to smallholders. This enables rural investment to increase, which in turns provides higher agricultural outputs leading to higher incomes. In addition, weather index insurance provides a safety net against the effects of adverse weather.
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