Sub-Saharan Africa

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Jul
Well-designed insurance programs can help to improve farmers’ resilience, access to finance, and high-quality inputs. To this end, IFC and Zimbabwe's insurance regulator, the Insurance and Pensions Commission (IPEC), issued a press release highlighting their collaboration to create a market for agricultural insurance products in Zimbabwe. The goal is to protect smallholder farmers against weather-related crop damage and other shocks. Through this project, the team will assess the risks faced by smallholder farmers, and their coping mechanisms, and also evaluate the farmers' appetite for...
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Jul
The agriculture and agro-processing sectors are the mainstay of Madagascar’s economy, accounting for about 24 percent of GDP in 2020. About 80 percent of the country’s population is involved in agriculture. However, due to its geographical location, Madagascar is largely affected by natural disasters, including droughts, cyclones, and floods, which threaten agricultural productivity. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is organizing a workshop to disseminate key results of the Madagascar Agriculture Insurance Diagnostic in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (...

Africa AgTech & Inclusive Insurance Challenge - Nairobi 2022 (Extended)

The Global Index Insurance Facility picked up valuable moments and testimonials from donors, guest speakers, and participants at the Africa AgTech & Inclusive Insurance Challenge hosted at Sankalp 2022 , which took place last month in Kenya, Nairobi. “This was a great opportunity for start-ups in this space to collaborate with IFC and its partners and bring to the fore game-changing ideas that will contribute to the transformation of Africa’s agricultural sector” , said Fatou Assah, GIIF Program Manager. Click here to watch the extended version of the wrap-up video.
In March 2022, in a joint effort, the Sankalp Forum and the IFC’s Global Index Insurance Facility (GIIF), ran the Africa AgTech & Inclusive Insurance Challenge aimed to celebrate and support young entrepreneurs who are working at the intersection of agriculture, insurance, climate, and gender to build resilience for smallholder farmers. Together, they identified 5 of the most promising AgTech enterprises who are looking to scale their innovative solutions that are driving agriculture resilience across sub-Saharan Africa. “The role of technology and innovation will be critical to driving...
Moroccan and Ghanaian MSME Resilience in the face of COVID-19
On behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and Allianz RE joined forces to support vulnerable communities in Morocco and Ghana in developing integrated risk management approaches for climate risks. In Morocco , the implemented risk management activities of this Public-Private Partnership are targeted at Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) located in Industrial Zones (IZ). The Ait Melloul Industrial Park was selected as a pilot IZ, because it has an economic value for the...
Ghanaian MSME Resilience In the face of COVID-19
MSMEs are one of the most important, yet vulnerable, drivers of development in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This stems from the fact that, while micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) are known to support over 50% of all livelihoods on the continent (both formal and informal), these firms often face a plethora of heterogenous risks that regularly put their survival and continuous operations in jeopardy. These risks can range from those faced uniquely at a firm level (such as credit, crime and infrastructural risks) to those endured at a much larger, systemic scale (such as climate...
Sovereign Flood Risk  Pre-Feasibility Study for  Ghana – A Summary
Climate change is manifested in Ghana through extreme weather events, especially flooding. The Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA) is particularly exposed to these recurrent shocks threatening economic development and human lives. Many public assets and infrastructure are key to flood control and risk mitigation in urban areas, but at the same time can be severely affected by extreme weather events and climate risks themselves. However, in Ghana, most public assets and infrastructure are not insured. This might be due to a relatively low understanding of insurance and the unavailability of...
Developing a Public  Asset Register
Urban flooding is a significant issue in Ghana, particularly in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA). Government agencies and municipalities seek to minimize damage from natural disasters, also for their public assets, through a variety of prevention measures. Nevertheless, a residual risk will always remain. Risk transfer within an Integrated Disaster Risk Management (IDRM) is central. For the development of an insurance product for public infrastructure assets various information about them, such as their value as well as their precise locations and previous flood occurrences for the...
Contingency Planning and Monitoring Tool
Cities experience serious incidents that prevent them from continuing their normal functioning. Such incidences can range from flood or fire to severe outbreaks of epidemics. During such emergencies, the affected cities are saddled with increased risks, mainly when the disaster management team is not well prepared to anticipate, cope with, respond to, and help in the recovery of the affected communities. City authorities have a constitutional responsibility to recover from such incidents in the minimum amount of time, with minimum disruption and at minimum cost. The ability of Metropolitan...
Developing Risk Profiles for  Public Assets
A risk profile of a public asset is an evaluation of the probability of the asset getting damaged depending on its exposure and vulnerability to a hazard. This determines potential risk reduction measures and the estimation of funds needed to protect the public asset, as a way of mitigating potential risks and threats. In addition, if there should be any residual risk after taking the necessary adaptation measures, these risks can then be transferred to third parties such as insurance companies. It is in public authority’s best interest to be proactive when it comes to risk profiling its...
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