Despite significant efforts made towards greater food security in the last decade, there remain millions of poor people in developing nations who suffer from chronic hunger. Boosting agricultural output is critical to mitigating this enormous development challenge. In recent years index-insurance has emerged as a widely recognized and powerful innovative tool that can help farmers manage financial losses arising from climate change and natural disasters. The World Bank Group’s Global Index Insurance Facility (GIIF), a multi-donor trust fund established in 2009, supports the development and

Geneva, Switzerland July 24, 2014 – The International Labour Office (ILO) and the World Bank Group (WBG) have signed a memorandum of understanding that aims to provide access to improved insurance products to hundreds of thousands of smallholder farmers, small businesses and individuals in Asia and Africa. The three year partnership is the first-of-its-kind within the rapidly evolving index insurance industry. The Facility and GIIF combine their strengths to improve the delivery of index insurance to farmers and their families as well as businesses, through extraction, dissemination and

BERLIN, November 27, 2014—The Global Index Insurance Facility (GIIF), an innovative program managed by the World Bank Group, launched today the Index Insurance Forum at the Agricultural Insurance Conference in Berlin. The Index Insurance Forum will serve as a unique forum for knowledge sharing and exchange of best practices among index-insurance practitioners and industry representatives.

IFC will work with the Center for Agriculture and Rural Development Insurance Agency and the Pioneer Insurance and Surety Corporation to design new insurance products that aim to protect Filipino farmers against typhoon-related losses, which are estimated to have exceeded $2.5 billion since 2009. According to the 2012 World Disaster Report, the Philippines ranks as the third most disaster-prone country in the world, with an average of 20 typhoons per year. The project will enable CARD Insurance and Pioneer Insurance to offer indemnity insurance to thousands of farmers and rural entrepreneurs

Farmers know that there will be years when the crop yields are reduced, or prices will be low. Perhaps they will diversify their crops, depend on livestock, or purchase a system to irrigate their crops. All these are ways to mitigate and reduce their risks. When there is no insurance culture or trust in insurance companies -and insurance companies themselves may not have extensive experience selling agricultural insurance - there is understandably little interest to purchase crop insurance. In such cases, it is the government who is the de facto insurer because crop losses of more than 50

In an interview with the GIIF Team, Aaltje de Roos, Senior Policy Advisor - Department for Sustainable Economic Development at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, explains why the Netherlands provides substantial donor support for agri-insurance programs in developing countries, including the World Bank Group's Global Index Insurance Facility. Q: What role would the Netherlands like to see the World Bank Group, and specifically GIIF, play in the agri-insurance field over the next 5-10 years? A: The World Bank Group, and GIIF especially, can boost the private insurance branch in

Collier argues that index insurance is best suited to cover disasters which occur every 20 years or greater because severe risks lower premium costs. Below are excerpts form the interview. Q: You have done substantial research, notably with Jerry Skees on index insurance. Why do you think that index insurance needs to be designed as “disaster insurance” rather than “crop insurance”? A: We need a new frame of reference for household markets. Up to now, the consensus focus has been crop yields. Yet the effects of bad weather on household well-being are often multifaceted and poorly captured by

Smallholder farmers need finance. According to a recent report of 1,800 banks conducted by the Initiative for Smallholder Finance – “ Local Bank Financing for Smallholder Farmers: A $9 Billion Drop in the Ocean ” - local banks in developing countries are currently lending approximately $9 billion to smallholder farmers compared to a total estimated demand of $300 billion globally for smallholder finance ($450 billion if China is included) . Although smallholder farmer financing also occurs through MFIs and non- financial intermediaries like supply chain participants, cooperatives and

According to The Climate Corporation – a tech company based in San Francisco -- data science has the potential to fundamentally improve the productivity and sustainability of global agriculture. Since 2007, the Climate Corporation has been hard at work building a technology platform that combines hyper-local weather monitoring, agronomic data modeling, and high-resolution weather simulations that are updated hourly. On the platform (see www.climate.com), Climate has built products to protect farmers with index-based insurance and improve profits with software that help farmers make more

Despite representing only a small portion of the total Property & Casualty market, parametric insurance has evolved rapidly in the last decade. This relatively new approach to insurance is index-based. At AXA, we believe that parametric insurance will continue to flourish in the future. Despite representing only a small portion of the total Property & Casualty market, parametric insurance has evolved rapidly in the last decade. This relatively new approach to insurance is index-based. For instance, in some geographies, claims could be paid out based on actual meteorological conditions measured