The risk of drought is one of the biggest threats to livestock production in Uruguay. This is particularly relevant in livestock breeding bases, as the quality of the available pasture directly affects the quality of the livestock, and livestock fertility takes years to recover from bad droughts. In 2011 The World Bank Group (WBG) launched a feasibility study on developing an Index Insurance pilot in Uruguay, funded by the Government of Japan through the Global Index Insurance Facility (GIIF). The study quantified the total number of reproductive livestock units as 3.8 million countrywide