ACRE Africa participated in 2018 Understanding Risk Forum in Mexico City in May 2018. Organized by the World Bank’s Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) and partners every two years, the event provides organizations and individuals with the opportunity to exchange knowledge, highlight new activities and initiatives, establish new partnerships, and foster innovation in the field. As part of this year’s program, the Disaster Risk Financing and Insurance Program (DRFIP) and the Global Index Insurance Facility (GIIF) – both in the WBG’s Finance, Competitiveness & Innovation

A newly designed Global Index Insurance Facility's Country Profile for Kenya is available for digital viewing. The document contains an overview of GIIF's project in Kenya with the partner, ACRE Africa. Read more about this program

In a case study, GIIF's Partner ACRE Africa reports that the project has helped Edward and Pauline Mkopi in Kenya protect their crops with weather index, area yield, and hybrid insurance. After several seasons of drought and excess rainfall, the Mkopis say "they now confidently invest in their maize and sunflower farm because they know they are insured against all kinds of risk." They also feel confident in working with ACRE Africa because the product relies on accurate data to determine how to do payouts.

On October 11, 2016, Joseph A. Owuor of The Insurance Regulatory Authority of Kenya presented a presentation entitled "Kenyan Experience with Parametric Insurance" at a workshop in Guatemala. Aimed at raising awareness on parametric insurance among supervisory authorities in Latin America and the Caribbean , t he First Regional Workshop on Parametric Insurance was put together by Microinsurance Catastrophe Risk Organisation (Micro) and participated by many stakeholders such as Access to Insurance Initiative, the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (Columbia University)

In june 2016, over 60 participants gathered at the College of insurance in Nairobi to discuss best practices and share their knowledge and expertise on index insurance, particularly livestock insurance and agriculture insurance. The discussions were quite timely, as the Government of Kenya recently allocated US$6 million for crop and livestock insurance for smallholder producers for next year, as one of the ‘key government flagship projects to drive the transformative agenda’. This is a five-fold increase in budget from the previous years with strong allocations toward data systems and premium

With 1.5 billion people worldwide getting access to financial services through a post office, postal networks are powerful tools to advance financial inclusion. Posts have already proved to have comparative advantages in remote areas and with specific vulnerable groups – the poor, the less educated and those in the informal economy – compared with other financial services providers. This study by the Universal Postal Union (UPU) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) delves into the transformative potential of postal networks into well-suited providers of insurance. The report

In the last decade, some insurance associations (IAs) have expanded beyond their traditional core functions to develop insurance consumer education (ICE) programmes. Based on a review of the experiences of IAs in five countries, namely Brazil, Colombia, Kenya, Mexico and South Africa, Microinsurance Paper #31 discusses the steps that should be taken during the preparation of an ICE. These include assigning responsibility internally, defining funding mechanisms, setting clear goals, defining the programme target and identifying partnership opportunities. It goes on to summarize key lessons for

This report explores evidence and insights from five case studies that have made significant recentprogress in addressing the challenge of insuring poor smallholder farmers and pastoralists in thedeveloping world. In India, national index insurance programmes have reached over 30 million farmersthrough a mandatory link with agricultural credit and strong government support. In East Africa (Kenya,Rwanda and Tanzania), the Agriculture and Climate Risk Enterprise (ACRE) has recently scaled to reachnearly 200,000 farmers, bundling index insurance with agricultural credit and farm inputs. ACRE

For Jeremiah Kithaka, farming maize on his three acre farmland is the primary source of livelihood enabling him to provide for his family of four. However, with changing rainfall patterns, delayed starts to the rainy seasons and longer and more frequent dry periods, Jeremiah has seen vast volatility in his income levels over the past few years.

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